EYS 


ZIGZAG  JOU 

IN  THE 

CAMEL  COUNTRY 


A  R,  A  B  I  A 

IN  PICTURE  AND  STORY 
A.  E  ££  S.M.  ZWEME& 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

Class  •• 


ZIGZAG    JOURNEYS   IN 
THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 


By 
A.  E.  and  S.  M.  ZWEMER 

Zigzag  Journeys  in  the  Camel 
Country 

Arabia  in  Picture  and  Story. 
I2mo,  cloth  .    ...  net  $1.00 


Topsy-Turvy  Land 

Arabia  Pictured  for  Children. 
Decorated,  cloth   .    .    .  net  .75 


The  Desert   Scout 


ZIGZAG  JOURNEYS  IN 
THE  CAMEL  COUNTRY 


ARABIA  IN  PICTURE 
AND     S  T  O  R  r 


By 
SAMUEL  M.  ZWEMER 

and 
AMY  E.   ZWEMER 

Authors  of  "Topsy  Turvy  Land" 


NEW  YORK         CHICAGO         TORONTO 

Fleming  H.  Revell  Company 

LONDON       AND       EDINBURGH 


Copyright,  1911,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  125  North  Wabash  Ave. 
Toronto:  25  Richmond  Street,  W. 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:  100  Princes  Street 


o 

J5 


children  of  missionaries 
all  the  -world  over 


235552 


c 


HEBE  is  another  book  of  pictures  and  stories  for 
the  big  children  and  small  grown-up  folks  who 
enjoyed  reading   "Topsy  Turvy  Land"   and 
want  to  know  more  about  Arabia.     A  great  part  of  this 
strange  Camel  Country  is  still  unknown,  and  there  are 
wide  deserts  which  only  the  camel  and  his  Arab  guide 
have  ever  crossed.     A  few  travellers  and  missionaries, 
however,  have  seen  something  of  Arabia  on  their  zigzag 
journeys  along  the  coasts  and  inland.    Would  you  like 
to  hear  the  story  ? 

The  camels  are  waiting  and  the  caravan  is  ready  to 
start.  You  will  not  grow  weary  by  the  way,  we  hope. 
If  the  desert  tracks  are  long  and  tiresome  through  the 
following  chapters,  just  refresh  yourself  in  the  oasis  of  a 
picture. 

( 8.  M.  Z. 
1  A.  E.  Z. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER                                                                                                                       PAGE 

I.             ZIGZAG  JOURNEYS  IN  ARABIA        .         .13 

II. 

THE  CAMEL  AT  HOME    .... 

18 

III. 

ALONG  UNBEATEN  TRACKS  IN  YEMEN 

25 

IV. 

GOING  TO  MARKET  TO  SOW  SEED 

32 

V. 

WHERE  THE  QUEEN  OF  SHEBA  LIVED 

37 

VI. 

THE  JEWS  OF  KHEIBAR    .... 

43 

VII. 

AMULETS     AND    OTHER     EVERY-DAY 
THINGS        

48 

VIII. 

THE    MOST    WONDERFUL    STONE    IN 
THE  WORLD       

54 

IX. 

THE  CAMEL  DRIVER  WHO  BECAME  A 
PROPHET     

60 

X. 

THE  LANGUAGE  OF  THE  ANGELS 

66 

XI. 
XII. 

PEARLS  AND  PEARL  DIVERS    . 

A  PIONEER  JOURNEY  ON  THE  PIRATE 
COAST          

74 
80 

XIII. 

ACROSS  THE  DESERT  OF  OMAN     . 

86 

XIV. 

JAIL-BIRDS           

95 

XV.  THE  ACORN  SCHOOL  .     101 

XVI.  THE  STORY  OF  A   ROLLER  BANDAGE     107 

XVII.  NAJMA'S  LAST  CHRISTMAS      .         .         .115 

XVIII.  THOSE  WHO  HAVE  NEVER  HEARD        .     119 


9 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 

THE  DESERT  SCOUT Frontispiece 

THE  BIG  CAMEL  MARKET  IN  THE  CRATER  AT  ADEN 
WHERE  WE  PREACHED  OUR  FIRST  SERMON, 
1891 14 

A  SWIFT  DROMEDARY  AND  AN  ARAB  POST-RIDER     .       20 

A  CARAVAN  FROM  YEMEN  BRINGING  IN  HIDES  FOR 

AMERICAN  KID  SHOES      .....       22 

A  PICTURE  CARVED  IN  STONE  2,000  YEARS  OLD, 
WITH  ITS  INSCRIPTION,  FROM  THE  LAND  OF 
SHEBA  ........  40 

THE  CASTLE  OF  KHEIBAT       .....      45 

WATER  CARTS  USED  AT  ADEN  TO  BRING  WATER 

FROM  THE  WELLS  TO  THE  CITY        ...      46 

A  WOMAN  OF  THE  HILL  TRIBES,  SHOWING  VEIL  AND 

AMULETS  WORN 48 

EVERY-DAY  THINGS  IN  ARABIA  ....  54 
THE  BLACK  STONE  AT  MECCA  ....  56 
OPENING  OF  THE  HEDJAZ  RAILWAY  ...  58 

WHEN  THE  ARABS  RETURN  FROM  PILGRIMAGE, 
THEY  LOAD  THEIR  BAGGAGE  ON  THE  POOR, 
PATIENT  CAMEL  ......  64 

FIRST  CHAPTER  OF  THE  KORAN      ....      68 

11 


LIST     OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

THE  EVOLUTION  OF  A  PEARL  BUTTON     ...  76 

PRAYER  IN  THE  DESERT 88 

MAP  OF  OMAN 91 

BEDOUIN  WOMEN  AND  THEIR  CHILDREN        .         .  98 

A  MECCAN  BOY 102 

A  BEDOUIN  GIRL  PLAYING  PEEK-A-BOO  ON  A  CAMEL  116 

"ARABIA"  (SONG) 125 


Grateful  acknowledgment  is  given  to  Mr.  J.  M. 
Coutinho,  photographer  at  Aden,  for  permission  to  use 
several  full-paged  photographs.  And  gratitude  is  also 
expressed  here  for  the  use  of  other  pictures  taken  by  our 
missionary  friends,  the  Rev.  J.  C.  Young,  M.  D.,  and 
Dr.  Sharon  J.  Thorns. 


12 


I 

ZIGZAG  JOTJENEYS  IN  AEABIA 

ZIGZAG  are  the  lines  across  the  deserts  of  Arabia 
that  mark  the  weary  journeys  of  the  camel 
caravans  for  centuries.  Arabia  has  no  straight 
roads.  The  crooked,  winding  paths  through  valley  and 
along  mountainside  or  over  sandy  tracks  are  worn 
smooth  by  the  shuffling  feet  of  the  animal-with-the-long- 
neck.  Every  bit  of  desert  thorn  or  green  herb  on  either 
side  of  the  path  means  a  step  away  from  the  straight  line. 
The  caravan  zigzags  towards  its  destination.  The  ship  of 
the  desert  makes  more  tacks  in  its  onward  course  than  a 
sailing-boat  with  a  contrary  wind  in  a  narrow  harbour. 

The  Arab,  like  the  camel,  is  not  in  love  with  straight 
lines.  An  Arab  carpenter  cannot  draw  a  right  angle, 
and  the  Arab  mason  seldom  uses  a  plummet.  An  Arab 
servant  has  great  trouble  in  laying  a  table- cloth  square  on 
the  table.  The  old  Arab  temple  at  Mecca  is  called  "a 
Cube  "  (Kaaba),  and  yet  has  none  of  its  sides  and  angles 
equal  but  is  a  zigzag  building.  Streets  are  never  parallel 
or  at  right  angles,  but  go  crisscross  in  all  sorts  of  ways 
except  the  shortest  way. 

And  so  it  came  to  pass  that  when  the  tribes  of  men  after 
the  deluge  scattered  from  the  Tower  of  Babel  far  to  the 
south  of  the  big  Arabian  peninsula  they  too  travelled  in 
zigzag  lines.  Some  went  to  the  far  east  on  the  Persian 

13 


Z  I:  G  Z  -A  G-  .      JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 

Gulf  arid  began  to  be  pearl- divers  at  Bahrein.  Others 
took  their  best  camels  all  the  way  across  the  waterless 
desert  of  the  interior  and  settled  in  Oman  to  become  the 
breeders  of  the  finest  dromedaries.  Others  went  meander- 
ing southward  along  the  river-beds,  called  wadies,  till  they 
came  to  the  beautiful  mountains  of  Yemen,  green  with 
trees  and  bright  with  blossoms.  Others  loved  the  dry, 
clear,  keen  air  of  the  high  plateau,  and  making  tents  of 
goat-hair  they  lived  with  their  flocks,  and  are  the  Bedouin 
tribes  of  to-day.  Still  others  were  driven  to  the  west  and, 
because  the  country  was  barren  and  dreadfully  hot, 
settled  near  a  spring  called  Zem  Zem,  and  built  the  city 
of  Mecca.  The  waters  of  the  spring  were  good,  they 
said,  for  fever  and  pain,  and  so  Mecca  became  a  health 
resort  and  a  market-place,  and  finally  a  religious  centre. 
Every  year  the  distant  tribes  came  in  great  caravans  to 
visit  the  city  and  exchange  mares,  camel-foals  and  bits  of 
poetry. 

The  children  of  Ishmael  and  other  grandchildren  of 
"  Father  Abraham  "  also  wandered  down,  and  before  the 
time  of  David  the  zigzag  lines  of  the  caravans  that  carried 
costly  merchandise  from  Persia  and  India  were  all  over 
Arabia.  The  single-track  roads  were  as  thick  as  the 
wrinkles  on  an  old  man's  forehead.  But  the  great  trunk 
lines  were  three  :  one  of  them  extended  from  Aden  on  the 
far  south,  which  was  the  chief  harbour,  along  the  whole 
western  stretch  of  Arabia  to  Egypt.  This  was  the  road 
which  the  Queen  of  Sheba  took  when  she  came  to  see 

14 


I 


c3 
U 

-- 
IS 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

Solomon  in  all  his  glory.  The  other  road  extended  from 
Babylon  across  the  desert  to  Damascus,  the  oldest  city  in 
the  world ;  and  the  third  caravan  route,  nearly  as  im- 
portant as  the  other  two,  went  slant-wise  from  the  mouth 
of  the  Euphrates  Eiver  to  the  old  capital  of  the  Queen  of 
Sheba,  Marib.  These  three  great  railroads  of  the  desert 
were  busy  day  after  day  and  month  after  month  and  year 
after  year  for  many  centuries.  Great  cities  sprang  up 
beside  these  camel  tracks,  and  the  ruins  of  Tadmor  still 
show  the  wonderful  importance  of  old  time  Arabia. 

But  for  one  reason  and  another  trade  chose  other  chan- 
nels, and  Arabia  lost  its  importance.  When  the  Wise 
Men  came  from  tLc  East  to  Bethlehem's  Manger  the 
trunk  lines  were  still  in  existence,  but  soon  after  Mo- 
hammed's birth  other  parts  of  the  world  became  more 
important,  and  Arabia  became  less  and  less  known  except 
to  those  who  live  in  its  deserts. 

It  had  to  be  rediscovered  in  the  present  century,  and 
the  story  of  the  rediscovery  of  Arabia  is  full  of  interest. 
This  story,  also,  is  a  story  of  zigzag  journeys. 

Some  bold  travellers  in  Europe  were  anxious  to  visit 
the  birthplace  of  Mohammed  and  see  the  holy  city  of 
Mecca,  and  at  the  risk  of  their  lives,  men  like  Burck- 
hardt,  Burton  and  others  reached  Mecca  and  Medina, 
travelling  with  the  Arab  caravans  and  dressed  as  Moslem 
pilgrims.  In  1862  Palgrave  made  his  celebrated  journey 
across  Arabia  from  west  to  east.  And  in  1876  Doughty, 
one  of  the  bravest  travellers,  made  his  long  and  difficult 

15 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 

zigzag  journeys  through  Northwest  and  North  Arabia, 
often  in  danger  of  his  life.  Suffering  hunger  and  thirst 
with  the  Bedouins,  he  was  driven  from  place  to  place 
until  he  finally  got  out  of  the  interior  safely. 

Even  earlier  than  these  well-known  travellers  were  the 
journeys  of  Cursten  Niebuhr  in  Yemen.  In  1763  he  was 
sent  by  the  King  of  Denmark  to  explore  the  unknown 
peninsula,  and  set  out  with  five  companions.  After  many 
wonderful  adventures  he  came  back,  but  he  was  the  only 
one  of  the  five :  the  others  died  in  Arabia  through  fever 
or  on  the  voyage. 

Except  for  the  portion  of  Arabia  seen  by  those  bold 
travellers  and  by  others  like  them,  a  great  part  of  the 
country  is  still  unknown.  No  missionaries  have  ever 
crossed  Arabia  although  they  have  made  journeys  into 
the  interior  and  along  the  coasts.  It  is  surprising,  but  it 
is  true  that  the  most  unknown  country  in  the  world  to- 
day is  Arabia.  We  have  better  maps  of  the  North  Polar 
regions  and  even  of  the  moon  than  we  have  of  Southeast 
Arabia  and  portions  of  the  interior. 

The  barren  desert,  fear  of  the  Bedouin,  always  ready  to 
rob  and  waylay  the  caravan,  and  the  hatred  of  the  Moslem 
for  the  Christian  have  closed  the  country  for  many  years 
against  travellers  and  missionaries  ;  but,  although  so  long 
neglected,  Arabia  is  now  becoming  better  known.  The 
coasts  have  been  explored,  and  they  are  actually  building 
a  railway  to-day  across  the  desert  from  Damascus  to 
Mecca  and  another  railway  along  the  northern  borders  to 

16 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

Bagdad.  A  few  months  ago  a  British  traveller  crossed 
Arabia  in  a  motor  car.  How  the  camels  must  have  been 
surprised ! 

In  the  chapters  that  follow,  we  will  take  some  zigzag 
journeys  together, — sometimes  on  camels,  sometimes  on 
donkey-back,  or  in  the  Arab  sailing-boats  along  the  coast. 
"We  will  not  tell  you  what  others  have  seen  or  heard  in 
this  wonderful  country  of  the  camel,  but  tell  our  own 
story ;  and  we  hope  that  you  will  learn  to  love  the  Arab, 
his  country,  and  his  camel  as  much  as  we  do,  and  make 
many  a  new  zigzag  track  across  the  map  of  Arabia  to 
mark  your  journeys  as  future  missionaries. 


17 


II 


THE  CAMEL  AT  HOME 


Mr.  and  Mrs.  Camel 

At  Home 

B.  C.  4000-A.  D. 


All  Over 
Arabia. 


PEESIA  for  goats,  Egypt  for  crocodiles,  Cashmere 
for  sheep,  Thibet  for  bulldogs,  India  for  tigers, 
but  Arabia  for  the  camel !  To  see  real  live  drome- 
daries, you  must  come  to  Arabia.  For  although  the 
camel  is  often  met  with  elsewhere,  no  country  can  show 
him  in  all  his  beauty  like  that  country  which  is  called  by 
the  Arabs  themselves  u  Um-el-Ibl,"  mother  of  the  camel. 
The  Oman  dromedary  is  the  prince  of  all  camel  breeds, 
and  is  so  highly  esteemed  in  the  markets  of  the  East  as 
to  fetch  three  times  the  price  of  any  other  camel.  And 
no  wonder  that  this  animal  has  reached  perfection  in 
Arabia !  He  has  been  at  home  in  its  deserts  and  trained 
by  its  tribes  for  many,  many  centuries.  Arabia  and  the 
camel  are  so  closely  connected  that  one  can  neither  under- 
stand the  Arab  nor  his  language  without  him.  Without 
the  camel,  life  in  a  large  part  of  Arabia  would  at  present 

18 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 
be  impossible.  Without  the  camel,  the  Arabic  language 
itself  would  lose  a  vast  number  of  words  and  ideas  and 
possibly  also  a  great  many  of  its  difficult  sounds.  There 
is  not  a  page  in  the  Arabic  dictionary  which  does  not 
have  some  reference  to  the  camel  and  the  life  of  this 
wonderful  ship  of  the  desert.  The  Arabs  give  him  five 
thousand,  seven  hundred  and  forty-four  different  names, 
but  the  most  common  name  by  which  he  is  known,  not 
only  by  the  Arabs  but  in  all  languages,  is  that  of lt  Jemil," 
that  is  to  say,  "  camel." 

When  the  Ishmaelites  brought  Joseph  to  Egypt,  and 
when  the  Queen  of  Sheba  came  to  visit  Solomon,  they 
travelled  on  camels.  The  caravan  was  the  earliest 
trunk  line  across  the  great  lands  of  the  East,  and  has 
probably  carried  more  freight  and  more  passengers  than 
the  Pennsylvania  Eailroad  or  the  largest  ocean  liners. 
Long  before  wagons  were  invented,  wheat,  barley,  wool 
and  spices  came  across  the  desert  on  camels  to  Nineveh 
and  Egypt. 

Have  you  ever  seen  such  a  desert  ship?  A  large, 
bony  animal,  six  or  seven  feet  high  to  the  top  of  its 
hump,  and  rude  and  ungainly  in  appearance.  Its  neck 
is  long,  but  curved  beautifully.  Its  ears  are  ridiculously 
small,  and  the  upper  lip  is  cleft  nearly  to  the  nose,  while 
the  lower  lip  hangs  down,  and  gives  the  whole  face  the 
appearance  of  "  having  the  blues. " 

The  camel  has  many  uses.  When  too  old  to  carry  a 
burden,  it  is  used  for  food.  Camel's  milk  is  very  whole- 

19 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 
some.  Camel's  hair  is  used  for  making  both  fine  and 
coarse  cloths,  and  the  skin  is  used  for  sandals,  water-bags 
and  thongs. 

The  dromedary  is  the  swift  post-camel,  which  carries 
its  rider  on  long  journeys  seventy  miles  a  day  on  the 
stretch.  A  caravan  of  ordinary  camels  is  like  a  freight 
train  and  is  intended  to  go  slowly  and  surely  with  its 
heavy  load  of  merchandise  ;  but  a  company  of  dromedary 
riders  is  like  a  limited  express.  The  ordinary  caravan 
travels  six  hours  a  day  and  about  three  miles  an  hour, 
but  a  good  dromedary  can  perform  wonders  on  the  road. 
A  merchant  once  rode  the  entire  distance  from  El  Kasim 
to  Taif  and  back,  over  seven  hundred  miles  in  fifteen 
days ;  and  a  post-rider  at  Maan  in  North  Arabia  can 
deliver  a  message  at  Damascus,  two  hundred  miles  away, 
at  the  end  of  three  days.  The  ordinary  camel  is  like  a 
packhorse,  but  the  dromedary  by  careful  breeding  has 
become  a  race-horse.  The  camel  is  thick-built,  heavy 
footed,  ungainly,  jolting.  The  dromedary  has  more 
slender  limbs,  finer  hair,  a  lighter  step,  a  wonderfully 
easy  pace  and  is  more  enduring  of  thirst.  All  the  camels 
in  Arabia  have  a  single  hump.  The  two-humped  camel, 
which  you  sometimes  see  in  the  circus,  does  not  come 
from  Arabia,  but  from  Central  Asia.  As  for  the  ordinary 
camel,  his  life  is  as  hard  as  the  desert  soil  and  as  barren 
of  all  comfort  as  the  desert  is  baro  of  grass.  Surely,  no 
animal  would  have  more  right  to  feel  sulky  and  dull. 

Always  in  hard  use  as  a  beast  of  burden,  underfed  and 

20 


A  Swift  Dromedary  and  an  Arab  Post-rider 


INS THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

A  R  A  B  I  A 

overloaded  in  the  desert  land  where  even  a  thorny  bush 
is  considered  a  tit-bit,  and  where  water  costs  money,  it 
is  no  fun  at  all  to  be  a  camel. 

Yet  to  describe  the  camel  is  to  describe  God's  goodness 
to  the  desert  dwellers.  The  Arabs  have  a  saying  that 
the  camel  is  the  greatest  of  all  blessings  given  by  Allah 
to  mankind  ;  and  when  Mohammed,  the  prophet,  wished 
to  call  attention  to  the  providence  and  loving-kindness  of 
God  among  the  Bedouins,  who  were  not  at  all  religious, 
he  said,  "  And  will  ye  not  look  then  at  the  camel  how 
she  is  created? "  With  his  long  neck  he  is  able  to  reach 
far  out  among  the  desert  shrubs  on  both  sides  of  his  path- 
way and  to  eat  as  he  trudges  along.  The  skin  of  his 
mouth  is  so  thick  and  tough  that  it  enables  him  to  eat 
hard  and  thorny  plants,  the  only  herbage  of  the  desert. 
The  camel's  ears  are  very  small  so  that  he  can  close  them 
when  the  desert  storm  begins  and  the  sand-drifts  come 
like  a  snow-storm.  But  his  nostrils  are  large  for  breath- 
ing and  yet  can  be  closed  up  tight  during  the  fearful 
simoom  or  hot  desert  winds.  His  eyes  are  protected  by 
heavy,  overhanging  lids  against  the  direct  rays  of  the 
noon  sun,  and  his  cushioned  feet  are  adapted  for  the  ease 
of  the  rider  and  of  the  animal  himself.  Five  horny  pads, 
one  on  each  knee,  and  one  under  the  breast,  support  the 
animal  when  kneeling  to  receive  a  burden  or  when  he 
rests  on  the  hot  sand.  The  camel's  hump  was  nature's 
pack-saddle  for  the  commerce  of  many  lands  and  for 
many  ages.  The  arched  backbone  which  supports  the 

21 


JOURNEYS 

B  I  A 


ZIGZAG 

A  R  A 

hump  is  constructed,  just  like  the  Brooklyn  Bridge,  to 
sustain  the  greatest  weight  in  proportion  to  the  span.  A 
strong  camel  can  bear  one  thousand  pounds'  weight, 
although  the  usual  load  is  not  more  than  six  hundred 
pounds.  The  camel  is  the  most  useful  of  all  domestic 
animals,  as  you  can  see  in  the  pictures.  He  can  carry 
burdens  or  draw  water  or  carry  the  swift  post  or  bring  in 
fire- wood  from  the  desert,  or  grind  corn.  While  still 
living  he  provides  fuel,  milk,  excellent  hair  for  making 
tents,  ropes,  and  shawls.  And  when  dead  the  Arabs  eat 
his  flesh  for  food,  use  his  leather  to  make  sandals,  and 
the  big  broad  shoulder-blades  are  used  as  slates  in  the 
day-schools  in  many  parts  of  Arabia.  A  camel  march 
is  the  standard  of  distance  among  the  Arabs,  and  the 
price  of  a  milch  camel  is  the  standard  of  value  among  the 
Bedouins  of  the  desert.  The  camel  is  the  most  patient 
animal  in  existence,  and  yet  he  often  has  an  ugly  temper 
and  is  undoubtedly  stupid  to  a  degree.  He  will  never 
attempt  to  throw  you  off  his  back,  but  if  you  fall  off  he 
will  never  dream  of  stopping  for  you  ;  and  if  turned 
loose  in  the  desert,  it  is  a  chance  of  a  thousand  to  one 
whether  he  will  find  his  way  back  to  his  accustomed  home 
or  pasture.  When  the  camel  becomes  angry,  he  bends 
back  his  long,  snaky  neck  and  opens  his  big  jaws  to 
bite.  Do  you  notice  the  powerful  jaws  of  the  camels  in 
the  pictures?  Yet  with  all  his  faults,  his  ungainly  gait, 
and  his  ugly  appearance,  you  cannot  help  loving  this 

ship  of  the  desert  when  once  you  have  made  a  zigzag 

22 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 
journey  on  camel-back  with  the  Arab  caravans.  Perched 
high  in  the  air  you  feel  as  if  you  were  riding  on  a  church 
steeple  or  an  aeroplane  and  the  swinging,  swaying  motion 
after  you  become  used  to  it  is  as  good  as  that  of  a  pleasure 
yacht  in  New  York  Bay  when  the  wind  is  blowing.  Then 
you  feel  like  singing  with  the  Arab  poet : 

"  Roast  meat  and  milk  ;  the  swinging  ride 
On  a  camel  sure  and  tried, 
Which  her  master  speeds  amain 
O'er  low  dale  and  level  plain." 

There  are  two  lessons  we  can  learn  from  the  camel,  and 
I  think  all  the  boys  and  girls  who  read  this  chapter  will 
like  to  know  them.  The  first  is,  how  to  bear  a  burden  and 
never  complain.  The  secret  of  carrying  this  burden  you 
will  see  when  the  caravan  prepares  for  the  long  journey. 
Every  camel  kneels  down  to  receive  its  load  in  the  morn- 
ing ;  every  camel  kneels  down  to  have  its  load  taken  off 
in  the  evening.  And  that  is  why  he  is  able  to  carry  his 
burden  to  the  end  of  the  desert  road.  How  much  easier 
the  great  burden  of  a  lost  world  in  need  of  the  Gospel 
could  be  carried,  if  we  all  learned  to  kneel  morning  and 
evening  !  To  kneel  and  have  the  Master's  hand  lay  the 
burden  on  us,  and  the  same  hand  take  it  off.  Then  we 
would  feel  the  responsibility,  and  yet  not  miss  the  quiet- 
ness and  rest  of  real  missionary  service.  Will  you  not 
kneel  to-night,  and  to-morrow,  and  ask  Jesus  to  teach  you 
this  lesson?  Because,  you  know,  the  burden  of  these 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 

heathen  lands  is  very  heavy.  There  is  on  all  of  them,  on 
Arabia  too,  the  burden  of  sin,  and  of  suffering,  and  of 
sorrow.  What  an  awful  burden !  And  yet  the  Bible 
tells  us,  "Bear  ye  one  another's  burdens,  and  so  fulfill 
the  law  of  Christ." 

The  second  lesson  is  that  of  patience,  which  is  the  chief 
virtue  of  the  camel,  the  most  necessary  virtue  for  every 
little  missionary,  and  absolutely  necessary  for  every  big 
missionary.  As  the  long  train  of  camels  goes  on  through 
the  narrow  sand  path  and  between  the  thorn -shrubs  of  the 
wilderness,  step  by  step,  without  sound  and  without  ceas- 
ing, tramp,  tramp,  tramp,  I  have  often  thought  of  the  text : 
1 '  They  shall  walk  and  not  faint. ' '  Patient  walking  is  better 
than  impatient  hurrying,  in  mission  work  and  everything 
else.  Patient  waiting,  too,  you  can  learn  from  the  camel. 
To  wait  patiently  for  results  and  not  to  dig  up  the  seed 
we  have  sown  before  it  sprouts.  The  Great  Husbandman 
has  long  patience  over  every  seed  that  He  sows ;  why 
should  not  we  f 

11  Let  us,  then,  be  up  and  doing, 

With  a  heart  for  any  fate, 
Still  achieving,  still  pursuing, 
Learn  to  labour  and  to  wait," 


m 

ALONG  UNBEATEN  TEACKS  IN  YEMEN 

THOSE  who  think  Arabia  is  a  sandy  desert  with 
a  few  nomad  tents  and  camels  and  ostriches 
scattered    over   it,  have   never   seen   Yemen. 
Yemen  is  the  most  fertile  and  most  beautiful  of  all  the 
provinces  of  Arabia.     It  means  the  right  hand,  and  this 
name  was  given  it  as  one  of  good  omen  by  the  early 
Arabs.     It  was  called  by  the  Romans  Arabia  Felix,  or 
Happy    Arabia,   to  distinguish  it  from  Arabia  Petrea 
(Stony  Arabia)  and  Arabia  Deserta  (Desert  Arabia). 

Those  who  have  never  gone  inland  from  Aden  cannot 
imagine  how  very  different  the  hill  country  is  from  the 
torrid  coast,  but  a  journey  of  even  thirty  miles  inland  is 
convincing.  Corn  never  grew  more  luxuriantly  in  Kansas 
or  Iowa  than  in  some  of  the  valleys  of  Yemen.  If  the 
country  had  a  good  government  and  the  people  were  Chris- 
tians, it  would  be  one  of  the  happiest  in  the  world  ;  a  coun- 
try where  the  orange,  lemon,  quince,  grape,  mango,  plum, 
apricot,  peach  and  apple  yield  their  fruit  in  their  sea- 
son ;  where  you  can  also  get  pomegranates,  figs,  dates, 
plantains  and  mulberries ;  a  country  where  wheat,  barley 
and  coffee  are  staple  products,  and  where  there  is  a  glo- 
rious profusion  of  wild  flowers — although  the  camel  drivers 
call  it  grass.  Here  one  can  see  the  nest  of  the  oriole  hang- 
ing from  the  acacia  tree,  and  wild  doves  chasing  each  other 

25 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 
from  the  clefts  of  the  rocks,  while  farther  up  in  the  high- 
lands, wild  monkeys  sport  among  the  foliage  of  the  trees. 

It  was  my  privilege  to  make  two  journeys  through 
Yemen  to  its  beautiful  capital,  Sanaa.  On  my  first  jour- 
ney (1891)  I  went  by  the  usual  road  from  Hodeida  on  the 
coast,  but  in  1893  I  chose  the  unbeaten  tracks  from  Aden 
directly  north,  in  order  to  see  some  of  the  places  not  yet 
visited  and  meet  the  people. 

At  the  time  of  my  first  and  also  of  my  second  journey, 
the  Arabs  were  in  rebellion  against  the  Turks.  They 
have  been  fighting  them  now  for  fifteen  years,  trying  to 
secure  their  independence,  and  this  year  the  country  is 
more  disturbed  than  ever,  but  the  Arabs  have  no  unity, 
no  leadership,  and,  worst  of  all,  no  artillery,  and  so  the 
Turkish  government  succeeds  in  crushing  the  rebellion 
time  after  time,  and  holding  this  province  of  Arabia  in 
her  grasp. 

It  was  five  o'clock  on  Monday  morning,  July  2d,  that 
I  set  off  from  Aden  with  my  camel  boy  Salih,  and  we  did 
not  stop  until  we  reached  the  village  of  Wahat,  nearly  at 
noon.  Starting  again  at  seven  o'clock,  we  followed  the 
Arab  custom  of  marching  the  whole  night  with  the  cara- 
van. There  was  no  breeze,  and  it  was  very  hot.  Vege- 
tation does  not  begin  until  you  enter  Wady  Merga.  Here 
we  had  fresh  dates,  and  made  our  camp  under  a  big  acacia 
tree.  The  road  begins  to  rise  rapidly  as  we  follow  the 
Wady  northwards,  and  at  midnight  we  pass  Suk-el- Juma, 
or  Friday  market.  This  part  of  the  road,  they  tell  us,  is 

26 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

dangerous,  and  so  the  Bedouins  who  accompany  our 
eighty -two  camel  caravan  swing  the  lighted  wicks  which 
they  use  to  fire  their  flint-lock  shotguns.  Only  one  man 
in  the  party  had  a  Springfield  rifle.  On  July  4th  we  fell 
in  with  some  Arabs  who  wanted  to  seize  me  as  a  spy  of 
the  British  government  and  keep  me  as  a  prisoner  until 
money  was  paid  for  my  release.  After  some  difficulty  we 
persuaded  them  that  I  was  not  a  British  subject,  and  that 
no  money  would  be  paid  even  if  they  kept  me  a  prisoner 
for  many  days. 

The  following  day  we  had  another  adventure.  Climb- 
ing up  the  valley  and  past  fields  of  verdure,  where  men 
were  plowing  and  women  were  weeding  the  gardens,  we 
suddenly  stumbled  upon  a  Turkish  castle,  where  an  un- 
mannerly negro  official  was  in  charge.  He  said  no 
strangers  were  allowed  beyond  the  Turkish  frontier, 
seized  all  my  baggage,  confiscated  my  books  and  maps, 
and  sent  me  under  guard  to  Taiz,  the  next  important 
town.  On  the  afternoon  of  the  same  day,  a  heavy  thunder- 
storm burst  upon  us  from  a  clear  sky,  the  wind  became  a 
hurricane,  some  of  the  camels  stampeded,  our  umbrellas 
turned  inside  out,  and,  worst  of  all,  a  mountain  torrent, 
swollen  by  the  sudden  rains  and  hail,  carried  away  a 
donkey  and  part  of  our  baggage.  Drenched  to  the  skin, 
we  at  last  forced  the  camels  up  the  slope  to  the  house  of 
an  Arab,  and  were  hospitably  entertained,  around  a  big 
fire  which  he  built,  on  Arab  coffee  and  sweetmeats. 

We  were  now  three  thousand  feet  above  sea  level,  and 

27 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 
it  was  very  cold  at  night  even  in  July.  \Ve  pressed  on 
the  next  day,  travelling  through  a  country  where  every 
one  fears  his  neighbour.  I  asked  my  guide  why  he  had 
not  prayed  since  we  left  Wahat,  and  his  answer  was,  "  If 
I  pray  on  the  road,  my  heart  gets  soft,  and  I  fear  to 
shoot  an  Arab  robber  because  he  may  be  a  Moslem. ' '  We 
saw  many  centipedes  and  scorpions  sleeping  after  their 
rain  bath,  and  warming  themselves  on  the  rocks.  Every 
turn  of  the  road  brought  us  in  sight  of  new  villages,  and 
everywhere  the  peasants  have  done  their  best  to  cultivate 
the  soil  by  irrigation,  until  you  can  count  a  dozen  terraces 
one  above  the  other  up  the  mountainside,  in  various 
shades  of  green  of  the  different  crops.  Once  and  again 
we  met  caravans  going  down  to  the  coast,  carrying  coffee 
or  sheep -hides,  as  you  see  in  the  picture.  One  could 
hear  the  approach  of  a  caravan  by  the  camel  drivers' 
song.  In  a  high,  monotonous  key  and  with  endless 
repetition,  they  would  sing  verses  like  this  about  their 
camels : 

"  O  Lord,  keep  them  from  all  dangers  that  pass, 
And  make  their  long  legs  pillars  of  brass." 

Two  days  later  we  arrived  at  the  interesting  old  town 
of  Taiz,  and  I  think  I  was  the  first  Western  traveller  to 
visit  it  since  the  days  of  Niebuhr  in  1763.  While  wait- 
ing for  the  governor  to  investigate  the  seizure  of  my 
baggage  and  the  question  of  my  passport,  I  had  a  good 
opportunity  to  study  the  town.  Taiz  has  a  population 

28 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

of  about  seven  thousand  people  ;  two  or  three  very  old 
mosques  with  minarets,  a  Jewish  synagogue,  and  a  very 
respectable  market.  Just  back  of  the  town  rises  a  moun- 
tain called  the  Bride's  Castle,  from  the  top  of  which  you 
can  see  clear  across  to  the  African  coast.  The  Turkish 
government  takes  its  own  time  about  such  a  little  matter 
as  the  inspection  of  baggage  and  the  granting  of  a  pass- 
port, and  it  was  July  26th  before  I  left  Taiz.  Even  then 
I  was  not  released,  but  sent  on  from  the  local  governor 
to  the  capital  under  guard  of  a  mounted  trooper,  who 
rode  a  beautiful  horse,  while  I  followed  on  a  mule.  It 
was  no  hardship,  however,  to  get  away  from  Taiz,  and 
once  more  to  breathe  the  country  air  and  climb  the  moun- 
tain passes. 

A  long  day's  journey,  always  climbing  up  the  mountain- 
side, brought  us  to  Ibb,  where  my  servant  was  imprisoned 
because  he  had  told  me  the  names  of  the  villages.  After 
some  difficulty  he  was  released,  but  the  incident  shows 
how  suspicious  the  Turks  are  of  strangers  who  travel  in 
their  country.  Twelve  hours  farther  on  we  came  to 
Yerim,  an  unhealthy  town  situated  near  a  marsh.  It 
was  July  29th,  but  the  high  elevation  and  the  rain-storms 
brought  the  temperature  down  to  fifty-two  degrees, 
which  was  a  great  change  from  the  temperature  at  Aden 
which,  when  I  left,  was  105  degrees  in  the  shade.  At 
another  village,  Maaber,  even  at  noon  the  temperature 
was  not  over  fifty-six  degrees,  and  we  wrapped  ourselves 
up  as  though  we  were  on  a  polar  expedition.  In  these 

29 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 

highlands  of  Yemen  snow  falls  during  the  winter  season, 
and  frost  is  common.  Just  after  leaving  Yerim,  we 
passed  a  large  boulder  on  the  road  with  an  impression  in 
it  as  though  it  were  of  some  one's  foot.  The  Arabs  say 
it  is  that  of  Ali,  the  grandson  of  Mohammed,  who  came 
along  this  road,  and  whenever  they  pass  it  they  anoint  it 
with  oil  and  stop  to  pray. 

From  Yerim  on  to  Sanaa  the  plateau  is  more  level. 
Wide  fields  of  barley  and  wheat  took  the  place  of  coffee 
plantations,  and  the  funniest  sight  we  saw  was  camels 
hitched  up  for  plowing.  What  with  their  long  necks 
and  queer  harness,  so  much  too  big  for  the  job,  it  was  an 
odd  sight.  Damar,  a  large  town  with  three  mosques  and 
houses  built  of  stone,  was  our  next  stopping  place. 
From  Damar  to  Waalan  was  thirty-five  miles,  and  then 
to  Sanaa  eighteen  miles  more.  The  roads  here  are  splen- 
did and  are  kept  in  good  repair  for  the  sake  of  the 
Turkish  artillery,  although  there  are  no  carriages  nor 
horses  in  use. 

On  Thursday,  August  2d,  I  entered  Sanaa  by  the 
Yemen  gate.  Three  years  before  I  entered  the  same  city 
from  the  other  side,  coming  from  Hodeida.  Handed 
over  to  the  care  of  a  policeman,  I  waited  for  the  governor 
to  hear  my  case,  and  after  finding  an  old  Greek  friend 
who  knew  me  in  Aden,  and  offered  to  go  bail,  I  was 
allowed  liberty,  and  for  nineteen  days  was  busy  seeing 
the  city  and  visiting  the  Arabs.  We  shall  hear  more  of 

Sanaa  in  a  following  chapter.     I  forgot  to  say  that  at 

30 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 
Yerim,  while  sleeping  in  the  coffee  shop,  I  was  robbed 
of  all  my  money,  and  so  I  ended  my  zigzag  journey  not 
only  tired  out,  but  a  pauper  j  and  if  I  had  not  pawned 
my  watch  and  coat,  I  would  have  been  in  debt  to  the 
hotel  keeper.  Pioneer  journeys  in  Topsy  Turvy  Land 
are  not  without  difficulty. 


31 


IV 
GOING  TO  MAEKET  TO  SOW  SEED 

THE  Arabs  are  a  very  old-fashioned  people.  In 
fact,  their  customs  have  not  changed  since  the 
time  that  Ishmael  as  a  boy  went  with  his  mother 
Hagar  on  the  camels  and  landed  somewhere  in  Arabia. 
I  suppose  that  even  in  those  old  times  the  Arabs  and  the 
Syrians  kept,  a  weekly  market  where  all  the  people  from 
all  the  villages  came  together  to  barter  their  wares,  to 
shake  hands  and  make  acquaintance  and  go  back  with 
a  larger  idea  of  their  small  world.  The  custom  of 
holding  weekly  markets  on  a  special  day  of  the  week 
even  in  the  smallest  villages  is  still  common  in  Arabia. 
In  fact,  there  are  villages  that  take  their  name  from  a 
market  day,  and  are  called  "  Thursday  "  or  "  Saturday  " 
because  on  those  days  of  the  week  the  village  takes  on  an 
air  of  importance  and  doubles  in  population.  The  Arabs, 
however,  do  not  have  the  same  names  for  the  days  of  the 
week  that  we  have.  Instead  of  naming  them  after  idols, 
Thursday  after  Thor  and  Wednesday  after  the  old  god 
Woden,  they  number  the  days  of  the  week  just  as  in 
the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  and  have  "The  First  Day," 
"The  Second  Day,"  etc.  The  only  exception  is  Friday 
which  is  the  sacred  day  of  the  week  and  the  Mohammedan 
Sabbath  and  is  named  "The  Day  of  the  Congregation" 

32 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

because  then  they  all  go  to  the  markets  to  pray  and  hear 
a  sermon. 

A  busy  market  is  held  at  "Suk  el  Khamis"  every 
Thursday  all  the  year  round,  rain  or  shine  (and  it  gen- 
erally is  shine  in  Arabia),  out  in  the  open  air  near 
the  ruins  of  an  old  mosque  about  three  miles  dis- 
tant from  Menama  village  at  Bahrein  where  the  mis- 
sionaries live.  The  two  tall  minarets  on  the  mosque 
can  be  seen  from  the  market.  It  is  one  of  the  oldest 
mosques  in  East  Arabia,  and  was  built  several  hundred 
years  ago  and  rebuilt  several  times.  Now  it  is  no  longer 
used  to  pray  in  nor  does  the  call  to  prayer  ever  ring  out 
from  the  minarets.  The  fact  is  that  one  Moslem  sect 
after  another  took  possession  of  the  building,  and  in  the 
religious  disputes  that  arose  the  building  itself  went  into 
decay.  One  part  of  the  mosque  is  now  used  for  a  goat 
pen.  The  gray  square  stones  of  which  the  mosque  was 
once  built  are  scattered  about  and  serve  as  seats  for 
visitors,  and  every  traveller  who  visits  Bahrein  climbs 
up  one  of  the  minarets  and  gets  a  fine  view  of  the  islands. 
If  you  can  read  the  old  writing  carved  on  the  stones  in 
Arabic  script,  you  can  see  how  often  this  mosque  has 
changed  hands  between  the  rival  parties  in  the  Moslem 
world  called  Shiahs  and  Sunnis,  and  if  you  should  ever 
visit  the  missionary  rooms  of  the  Eeformed  Church  in 
New  York,  the  secretary  there  can  show  you  a  gavel  or 
mallet  made  from  a  beam  of  wood  which  was  once  in  the 
roof  of  this  very  mosque.  A  piece  of  the  old  beam  fell 

33 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 
to  the  ground  and  was  made  into  a  mallet  to  show  that 
the  religion  of  Islam  in  Arabia  is  decaying  and  that  mis- 
sionaries to  Moslems  need  not  be  afraid  to  enter  the 
country  of  Mohammed. 

Every  Thursday  morning  the  plain  around  this  mosque 
is  a  busy  scene.  How  often  I  have  ridden  down  to  this 
market  on  a  donkey  or  walked  in  the  heat  of  the  sun  and 
have  seen  a  thousand  or  more  people  crowded  together  in 
all  their  bright  coloured  garments,  men  and  women  and 
children,  busily  engaged  in  trade,  in  play,  or  in  quarrels 
over  the  price  of  an  article  !  One  man,  perhaps,  brings  a 
load  of  water  jars  from  the  village  of  AH.  Another  has 
a  big  donkey  load  of  ropes  or  mats  for  sale,  and  still  an- 
other brings  great  baskets  of  melons,  pomegranates,  dates, 
limes  and  vegetables.  Women,  covered  over  with  their 
heavy  black  veils  and  looking  very  mischievously  through 
little  peep  holes  for  their  eyes,  crouch  on  the  ground  be- 
fore their  little  open-air  stands  where  they  sell  cheap 
jewelry  and  trinkets  or  tiny  bottles  of  perfume  and  black 
antimony  powder,  which  the  Arab  girls  use  for  their 
eyes. 

The  barber  is  also  busy  and  plies  his  razor  with  a  deft 
hand  while  he  shaves  the  heads  and  beards  of  those  who 
come,  charging  only  a  few  coppers  for  the  job.  The 
breadmaker  arrives  on  the  scene  very  early,  and  builds 
his  small  open  oven  to  bake  his  flap-cakes.  He  rolls  the 
dough  on  a  board,  flattens  it  out  with  his  fingers  and  then 

tosses  it  against  the  sides  of  the  hot  oven  where  it  sticks 

34 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

fast  and  bakes  into  a  large,  light,  palatable  cake.  Oh, 
how  good  such  Arab  bread  is  when  you  are  hungry,  or 
when  you  sit  down  to  an  Arab  guest  meal  and  have  it 
served  with  fresh  butter  and  honey  ! 

More  numerous  and  more  loud  than  all  the  others  who 
come  are  the  half-naked  Bedouins  who  come  to  sell  a 
drove  of  sheep  or  barter  for  a  couple  of  camels.  They  are 
all  there  this  morning  : 

"  Rich  man,  poor  man,  beggar  man,  thief ; 
Doctor,  lawyer,  merchant,  chief  ; 
Butcher,  baker  and  candlestick  maker." 

And  if  the  candlestick  maker,  who  sells  more  candles 
than  candlesticks,  is  present,  why  should  the  missionary, 
who  is  sent  to  bring  the  Light  of  Life  to  men,  be  absent ! 
As  often  as  possible  therefore  we  visit  this  market- 
place, and  sell  books  and  Bibles  or  preach  to  those  who 
will  listen.  It  is  not  at  all  an  easy  place  to  sell  or  to 
preach,  but  those  who  come  there  witness  fine,  splendid 
opportunities  to  meet  men  face  to  face,  to  get  acquainted 
and  to  renew  old  acquaintance  with  villagers  who  come 
from  distant  parts  of  the  Bahrein  Island  group.  Here  it 
is  that  many  a  gospel  portion  has  exchanged  hands  and 
many  a  story  of  the  power  of  Christ  has  been  sowed  as 
good  seed  in  the  hearts  of  the  Arabs  in  the  hope  that 
God  would  use  it  to  make  them  think  of  Jesus  Christ  as 
their  Saviour.  If  books  are  sold  they  are  often  carried 

from  here  to  distant  villages,  and  it  is  possible  to  make 

35 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 

acquaintance  here  with  Arabs  who  come  from  the  main- 
land and  are  visiting  the  islands,  while  one  is  sure  to  meet 
old  friends  who  have  not  been  able  to  come  to  see  you  for 
a  long  time. 

One  merchant  used  to  keep  a  dry-goods  stand  and  was 
one  of  the  few  Moslems  in  the  early  days  of  our  work  who 
was  always  glad  to  welcome  a  missionary.  When  the  sun 
was  very  hot  the  shelter  of  his  mat-screen  was  a  nice  shady 
nook  to  sit  down  in  and  talk  with  wayfarers.  Eight  near 
the  tall  minarets  we  sometimes  discuss  the  Koran  and  its 
teachings,  and  tell  the  Arabs  how  the  book  of  Mohammed 
is  really  a  finger-post  pointing  them  to  the  Gospel  and  to 
Jesus  Christ,  the  Great  Prophet  Who  is  alive  forevermore. 
Will  you  not  pray  that  every  Thursday  God  will  bless 
this  little  acre,  the  market-place  of  Suk  el  Khamis, 
where  we  sow  the  seed  of  God's  Own  Word,  waiting  for 
the  harvest I 

1  Sowing  the  seed  with  an  aching  heart, 

Sowing  the  seed  while  the  tear-drops  start, 

Sowing  the  seed  till  the  reapers  come 

Gladly  to  gather  the  harvest  home ; 

Gathered  in  time  or  eternity, 
'  Sure,  ah  sure,  will  the  harvest  be." 


36 


V 
WHERE  THE  QUEEN  OF  SHEBA  LIVED 

YOU  have  all  read  the  story  given  in  1  Kings  x. 
of  the  Queen  of  Sheba  and  her  visit  to  Solomon 
of  whose  fame  she  had  heard  in  her  distant 
kingdom  in  Southwest  Arabia,  but  the  story  as  told  in 
Mohammed's  Bible,  the  Koran,  is  very  different,  and  has 
many  curious  fables  mixed  up  with  it.     It  is  found  in  the 
chapter  called  "  The  Ant,"  and  this  is  how  he  tells  it. 

"We  heretofore  bestowed  knowledge  on  David  and 
Solomon :  and  they  said,  Praise  be  unto  God,  who  hath 
made  us  more  excellent  than  many  of  His  faithful  serv- 
ants !  And  Solomon  was  David's  heir;  and  he  said,  O 
men,  we  have  been  taught  the  speech  of  birds,  and  have 
had  all  things  bestowed  on  us ;  this  is  manifest  excellence. 
And  his  armies  were  gathered  together  unto  Solomon, 
consisting  of  genii,  and  men  and  birds ;  and  they  were 
led  in  distinct  bands,  until  they  came  unto  the  valley  of 
ants.  And  an  ant,  seeing  the  hosts  approaching,  said,  O 
ants,  enter  ye  into  your  habitations,  lest  Solomon  and  his 
army  tread  you  under  feet,  and  perceive  it  not.  And 
Solomon  smiled,  laughing  at  her  words,  and  said,  O 
Lord,  excite  me  that  I  may  be  thankful  for  Thy  favour 
wherewith  Thou  hast  favoured  me  and  my  parents  ;  and 
that  I  may  do  that  which  is  right  and  well-pleasing  unto 

Thee  ;  and  introduce  me,  through  Thy  mercy,  into  Para- 

37 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 

dise,  among  Thy  servants  the  righteous.  And  he  viewed 
the  birds,  and  said,  What  is  the  reason  that  I  see  not  the 
lapwing  I  Is  she  absent  I  Verily  I  will  chastise  her  with 
a  severe  chastisement,  or  I  will  put  her  to  death,  unless 
she  bring  me  a  just  excuse.  And  she  tarried  not  long 
before  she  presented  herself  unto  Solomon,  and  said,  I 
have  viewed  a  country  which  thou  hast  not  viewed ;  and 
I  come  unto  thee  from  Saba,  with  a  certain  piece  of  news. 
I  found  a  woman  to  reign  over  them,  who  is  provided 
with  everything  requisite  for  a  prince,  and  hath  a  magnif- 
icent throne.  I  found  her  and  her  people  to  worship  the 
sun,  besides  God." 

The  Koran  then  goes  on  to  tell  how  Solomon  sent  her  a 
letter,  and  she  sent  ambassadors  to  him,  and  finally  asked 
one  of  his  terrible  jinn  to  bring  her  to  him,  throne  and 
all,  from  Southwest  Arabia.  He  did  it  in  the  twinkling 
of  an  eye,  and  after  she  saw  Solomon  and  his  glory  she 
was  converted  to  his  religion  ! 

Although  this  latter  story  of  the  Queen  of  Sheba  is 
evidently  fabulous,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  Bible  story 
is  true,  because  recent  explorers  have  visited  the  country 
of  the  Queen  of  Sheba  and  her  old  capital  Marib,  a  short 
distance  east  of  Sanaa,  and  have  brought  back  inscrip- 
tions which  tell  of  the  ancient  glory  of  her  kingdom.  In 
the  Old  Testament  the  Sabaeans  lived  in  Sheba,  and  their 
caravans  brought  gold  and  precious  stones  and  spices  into 
distant  lands.  (See  Job  vi.  19 ;  Ezek.  xxvii.  22,  and 
Psalm  Ixxii.  10.) 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

On  iny  first  and  second  visit  to  Sanaa,  the  high  moun- 
tain capital  of  all  Yemen,  I  was  privileged  to  look  over 
into  the  borders  of  the  country  where  the  Queen  of  Sheba 
lived,  and  on  the  journey  described  in  Chapter  III  I 
probably  travelled  from  the  coast  by  the  same  road  which 
was  used  in  the  days  of  Solomon.  It  is  not  easy  to  build 
roads  in  so  mountainous  a  country.  Everywhere  one  can 
see  the  ruins  of  the  old  Himyarite  civilization  which 
flourished  here  from  the  time  of  Solomon  until  the  Chris- 
tian era.  Some  of  the  roads  undoubtedly  have  been  kept 
in  repair  ever  since  they  were  built  along  the  mountain- 
side by  these  early  engineers.  Stone  bridges  across  tor- 
rent beds,  tanks  for  holding  water,  and  old  castles  with 
inscriptions  in  the  strange  language,  still  witness  to  the 
strength  and  vigour  of  this  old  empire.  The  accompany- 
ing picture  is  not  that  of  the  Queen  of  Sheba  herself,  but 
is  undoubtedly  that  of  a  princess  in  the  Sheba  country. 
It  was  found  among  many,  many  other  inscriptions  and 
carvings  in  the  land  south  of  Marib,  the  old  capital, 
where  the  famous  dyke  was  built  which  was  destroyed 
by  a  flood.  When  you  study  the  picture,  you  will  notice 
that  the  woman's  dress,  with  its  ornaments  and  without  a 
veil,  the  use  of  a  throne,  the  carved  pillars,  and  the  page 
boys  (or  are  they  girls?)  in  waiting,  are  all  so  very  differ- 
ent from  the  Arabia  of  to-day.  The  picture  is  also  inter- 
esting when  we  remember  how  the  early  travellers  and 
scientists  who  copied  or  brought  back  these  famous  in- 
scriptions have  confirmed  the  history  of  the  Old  Testa- 

39 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

A  R  A  B  I  A 

ment  and  its  many  references  to  South  Arabia.  One  of 
them  says :  "  The  Queen  of  Sheba  proved  Solomon  with 
hard  questions,  all  of  which  in  his  wisdom  he  answered 
her.  Now  we  who  study  the  Old  Testament,  reversing 
the  process,  go  to  the  wonderland  of  that  queen  with  a 
multitude  of  inquiries,  to  many  of  which  it  has  already 
given  us  a  satisfactory  reply. " 

The  capital  of  the  Queen  of  Sheba,  Marib,  is  largely  in 
ruins,  but  something  of  the  glory  of  the  old  civilization 
still  lingers  at  Sanaa,  which  is  at  once  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  and  one  of  the  most  ancient  cities  of  Arabia, 
built  before  the  time  of  Solomon.  It  lies  in  a  wide  valley 
7,250  feet  above  sea  level.  Jebel  Nakum,  with  its  marble 
quarries,  rises  abruptly  like  a  fortress,  just  east  of  the 
city.  The  town  is  surrounded  by  a  high  wall,  and  has 
four  gates.  The  houses  are  many  of  them  four  and  five 
stories  high,  built  of  stone,  and  as  they  have  no  window- 
glass,  they  use  slabs  of  alabaster  instead.  The  popula- 
tion of  the  city  is  about  fifty  thousand,  of  whom  more 
than  twenty  thousand  are  Jews. 

My  first  visit  to  the  city  was  in  1891,  and  the  second 
in  1894.  The  first  time  I  came  straight  up  from  Hodeida 
through  Menakha,  and  in  four  days  reached  the  city. 
The  second  journey  was  from  Aden  northward,  leaving 
on  July  2d,  but  what  with  delays  and  accidents  and  im- 
prisonment by  the  Turks  at  Taiz,  I  did  not  reach  Yemen's 
capital  until  the  2d  of  August.  The  most  surprising 
thing  about  Sanaa  is  not  its  old  ruins,  nor  the  wonderful 

40 


ifffiffi 


A  picture  carved  in  stone  2,000  years  old,   with  its   inscription, 
from  the   land   of    Sheba 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

fertility  of  the  country  round  about,  but  the  interesting 
character  of  its  population.  Here  was  a  large  city  full  of 
Jews  who  came  to  this  part  of  the  world,  as  they  them- 
selves testified,  long  before  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  ; 
Greek  merchants  were  carrying  on  a  brisk  trade  in  all 
the  manufactured  articles  of  Europe  with  the  Arabs  of 
the  interior  ;  Turkish  army  officials  in  splendid  uniform 
trying  in  vain,  as  they  are  to-day,  with  their  regiments 
of  Turkish  troops  to  put  down  Arab  rebellions ;  and  then 
the  Arabs  themselves,  men,  women  and  children,  strong 
mountaineers,  with  love  for  liberty  and  heartily  despising 
the  government  of  which  they  are  unwilling  subjects. 

Looking  northward  from  this  city  you  can  see  the 
highlands  of  Asir  and  the  distant  road  that  leads  through 
Nejran.  All  this  country  was  once  Christian,  and  in 
Sanaa  itself  stood  the  great  cathedral  built  by  the  Abys- 
sinian king,  Abraha,  about  the  time  when  Mohammed  was 
born.  Prom  Sanaa  he  led  his  army  to  Mecca,  hoping  to 
take  the  city  and  convert  it  to  the  Christian  faith,  but  he 
was  not  successful.  In  the  Koran  chapter  of  "The  Ele- 
phant," you  may  read  how  the  Christians  were  defeated 
when  smallpox  broke  out  among  them.  Standing  on  the 
slopes  of  Jebel  Nakum  and  looking  eastward,  the  country 
of  the  Queen  of  Sheba  is  spread  out  before  you.  You 
can  imagine  I  was  very  sorry  that,  having  been  robbed 
of  all  my  money  on  the  way,  it  was  impossible  to  carry 
out  my  plan  of  going  from  Sanaa  to  Marib,  and  from 
there  right  across  Arabia  to  Bahrein.  Perhaps  some  of 

41 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 

you  who  read  these  lines  will  be  privileged  to  make  this 
journey.  If  you  are,  you  will  pass  through  some  of  the 
most  interesting  ruins  in  the  world,  and  the  hardships  of 
a  camel  journey  will  be  abundantly  compensated  by 
what  you  see  on  the  road. 


42 


VI 
THE  JEWS  OF  KHEIBAR 

NEAELY  all  of  the  people  who  live  in  the  country 
of  the  camel  are  Mohammedans,  but  it  was  not 
always  so.  Before  the  days  of  Mohammed, 
the  prophet,  there  were  very  many  Christians  in  Arabia 
and  also  many  Jews.  The  former  lived  mostly  in  the 
southern  part  of  the  great  peninsula,  but  the  Jews  had 
large  settlements  not  only  in  the  country  of  the  Queen  of 
Sheba — of  which  we  have  heard — but  also  at  Mecca  and 
Medina,  which  are  now  the  two  sacred  cities,  and  espe- 
cially in  the  country  north  of  Medina,  Kheibar.  Some 
of  these  children  of  Israel  came  to  Arabia  at  the  time  of 
the  captivity  when  they  were  driven  from  their  own 
country  by  persecution,  and  settled  down  in  the  rich  and 
fertile  valleys  of  Nejran  and  on  the  hills  of  Yemen. 
Others  came  to  Arabia  about  the  time  when  Jesus  Christ 
was  born. 

There  are  Jews  in  Arabia  still  but  not  nearly  as  many 
as  in  the  olden  time.  Their  condition,  too,  is  very  sad 
and  they  are  often  sorely  oppressed  by  the  Moslems. 
There  is  no  missionary  working  among  them  at  present, 
although  they  have  been  visited  by  colporteurs  who 
brought  them  the  New  Testament  in  the  Hebrew  lan- 
guage so  that  they  might  read  for  themselves  the  story  of 

the  Saviour  Jesus  Christ.     I  once  had  the  pleasure  of 

43 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 

talking  to  a  large  company  of  Jews  in  the  capital  city 
of  Yemen,  Sanaa,  and  it  was  very  touching  to  realize 
that  these  Jews  were  not  of  the  number  whose  ancestors 
rejected  Jesus  and  led  Him  out  to  be  crucified,  because 
as  they  themselves  told  me  their  forefathers  had  left  the 
Holy  Land  many,  many  years  before  Jesus  was  born  at 
Bethlehem. 

But  I  want  to  tell  you  about  the  Jews  of  Kheibar. 
Northeast  of  the  city  where  Mohammed  lies  buried,  Me- 
dina, there  is  a  barren  stretch  of  rocky  country  and  in 
the  midst  of  it  a  valley  where  there  are  some  springs  of 
water  and  where  with  great  toil  it  is  possible  to  produce 
some  vegetation.  Here  it  was  that  thousands  of  Jews 
settled  in  the  days  before  Mohammed,  tilled  the  soil  and 
lived  happily  until  the  Arabian  prophet  with  his  fierce 
warriors  came  preaching  a  new  religion  and  filling  the 
valley  with  the  dead  bodies  of  those  who  would  not  ac- 
cept it. 

You  may  read  the  story  of  this  expedition  of  Moham- 
med in  the  history  of  his  life.  So  bloody  was  the  battle 
fought  between  the  Jews  and  the  Moslems  that  the  Bed- 
ouins of  that  region  when  they  see  the  iron  rust  on  the 
banks  of  the  brooks  still  say  :  "Look  how  the  earth  is 
purging  itself  of  the  much  blood  of  the  Jews  that  was 
spilled  in  the  conquest  of  Kheibar. "  According  to  the 
stories  told  by  the  Arab  writers  it  was  a  desperate  strug- 
gle. The  Jews  did  not  give  Mohammed,  the  prophet, 
any  easy  victory.  To  defend  themselves  against  Bedouin 

44 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

robbers  and  against  assault  they  had  built  in  the  midst  of 
their  valley  several  castles  or  forts,  one  of  which  was  so 
wonderful  that  it  has  very  often  been  celebrated  among 
the  Arabs.  It  was  called  the  Castle  of  Kheibar  or  Kamoos. 
An  old  Jewish  warrior  told  the  people  that  if  they  would 
build  a  fort  in  exact  obedience  to  his  written  command  it 
would  be  so  strong  that  no  enemy  could  overcome  them 
or  enter  the  fort.  And  these  were  his  instructions : 
"  Build  the  castle  with  eight  gates  and  only  one  entrance ; 
the  walls  eightfold  and  square ;  the  entrance  from  the 
fifth  j  the  second,  the  fourth  j  the  third,  the  first ;  the 


THE  CASTLE  OF   KHEIBAR. 


fourth,  the  second ;  the  fifth,  the  third ;  the  sixth  and 
seventh  and  eighth  unchanged. "  I  will  not  leave  you  to 
puzzle  over  these  strange  instructions.  An  Arab  friend 


45 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 

of  mine  who  told  me  the  story  drew  the  castle  for  me  and 
here  you  have  it.  If  you  will  try  to  find  your  way  to  the 
keep  of  the  castle  where  the  Jews  defended  themselves, 
you  will  agree  that  it  is  not  surprising  that  it  took  Mo- 
hammed twenty  days  to  storm  it.  When  the  castle  was 
taken,  the  booty  divided  and  the  captives  slain  in  a  most 
cruel  manner,  Mohammed  took  Safia,  the  widow  of  the 
chief  of  Kheibar  to  his  tent  as  his  captive.  Zainab,  the 
sister  of  the  warrior  who  fought  against  Mohammed  and 
who  herself  had  lost  her  brother,  her  husband  and  her 
father  in  the  battle,  tried  the  next  day  to  kill  the  prophet 
of  Arabia  by  sending  him  some  mutton  into  which  she 
had  put  poison,  but  her  attempt  at  vengeance  was  not 
successful.  The  Moslems  say  it  was  a  miracle  that  their 
prophet  escaped. 

The  conquest  of  the  Jews  was  complete,  for  all  the  Jews 
that  escaped  from  the  siege  of  Kheibar  were  obliged  to 
turn  Moslems  and  there  never  was  freedom  for  the  Jew 
again  in  all  Arabia.  They  are  generally  heavily  taxed, 
have  no  redress  against  abuse  and  repression  and  are 
looked  down  upon  by  all  the  Moslem  population.  In  the 
capital  city  of  Sanaa  they  are  not  even  allowed  to  carry 
arms  or  to  ride  in  the  streets.  They  must  live  in  a  sep- 
arate part  of  the  town  and  draw  water  from  wells  of  their 
own. 

At  Aden  and  in  other  parts  of  British  Arabia  the  Jews 
are  prosperous,  but  everywhere  else  their  lot  is  not  a 
happy  one.  The  total  number  of  Jews  in  Arabia  is  per- 

46 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

haps  two  hundred  thousand.  One  half  of  them  at  present 
live  in  Yemen  and  the  rest  mostly  in  Bagdad  and  Busrah. 

The  traveller  who  goes  on  shore  at  Aden  on  his  way  to 
India  never  fails  to  meet  the  Jews.  In  fact,  they  besiege 
every  passing  steamer  and  are  anxious  to  sell  their  wares, 
ostrich  eggs,  ostrich  feathers,  coins,  and  curios.  You  can 
at  once  tell  them  from  their  peculiar  habit  of  wearing  two 
locks  of  hair  in  front  of  their  ears.  Many  of  the  Jews  in 
Arabia  are  utterly  given  over  to  money  getting  and 
worldly  pleasures,  but  others  are  strong  in  their  religion 
and  look  forward  still  for  the  hope  of  Israel.  They  are 
always  glad  to  purchase  the  Hebrew  Bible  and  to  send 
their  children  to  school. 

Pray  for  this  despised  and  rejected  people  there  in 
Arabia  and  everywhere  that  more  may  be  done  for  their 
salvation  and  that  missionaries  may  be  sent  to  work 
especially  for  these  "lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel " 
who  have  so  long  been  living  in  the  tents  of  Ishmael ! 
Perhaps  God  wants  one  of  you  to  come  out  and  tell  them 
the  story  of  Jesus  Christ  Who  must  love  them  more  than 
we  do  as  He  is  one  of  themselves. 


47 


VII 
AMULETS  AND  OTHER  EVERY-DAY  THINGS 

DID  you  ever  see  a  woman  or  a  girl  dressed  in  such 
a  strange  way  as  the  one  in  the  picture  1  Of 
course  you  know  that  Moslem  women  wear 
veils,  but  this  veil  is  like  a  window-casing  with  the  panes 
of  glass  knocked  out.  It  is  made  of  stiff  cloth,  heavily 
embroidered,  sometimes  with  gilt  or  silver  embroidery, 
and  ^has  a  nose  piece  and  strings  to  fasten  around  the 
head.  In  addition  to  this  curious  veil  you  notice  that  she 
has  three  bracelets  on  each  arm,  and  you  can  get  a 
glimpse  of  her  nose  jewel  hanging  underneath  the  veil. 
Of  course  she  wears  earrings  and  anklets.  The  most  con- 
spicuous part  of  her  jewelry,  however,  is  the  amulet  case 
which  hangs  by  a  silver  chain  from  around  her  neck,  and 
has  beautiful  bangles  attached  to  it  below.  Nearly  every 
one  in  Topsy  Turvy  Land  wears  amulets.  They  are  worn 
not  Jfor  ornament,  but  for  protection,  and  no  one  would 
think  of  leaving  them  at  home  if  he  went  on  a  journey. 

Amulets  and  charms  are  worn  not  only  by  the  Arabs 
themselves  and  to  protect  their  children  from  the  evil  eye, 
but  they  are  put  over  the  doors  of  their  houses,  and  hung 
on  camels,  donkeys,  horses,  fishing  boats,  in  fact,  any- 
where and  everywhere  to  ward  off  danger  and  death. 
Only  yesterday  a  little  boy  came  to  our  church  service, 
whose  mother  is  still  a  Moslem,  and  he  had  hanging  from 

48 


A  Woman  of  the  Hill  Tribes,  showing  veil  and  amulets  worn 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 
his  neck  a  whole  collection  of  curious  things,  beads, 
bones,  sacred  relics,  etc.,  all  to  protect  him  from  the  evil 
eye. 

All  sorts  of  things  are  used  as  amulets  in  Arabia,  and 
their  use  is  justified  by  the  saying  of  Mohammed  himself : 
"  There  is  no  wrong  in  using  charms  and  spells  so  long  as 
you  do  not  associate  anything  with  God."  The  most 
common  things  used  as  amulets  are  a  small  Koran 
suspended  in  a  silver  case  ;  words  from  the  Koran  written 
on  paper  and  carried  in  a  leather  receptacle ;  the  names  of 
Allah  or  their  numerical  value  ;  the  names  of  Mohammed 
and  his  companions ;  precious  stones  with  or  without 
inscriptions ;  beads  ;  old  coins  ;  clay  images  j  the  teeth  of 
wild  animals ;  holy  earth  from  Mecca  or  Kerbela  in  the 
shape  of  tiny  bricks,  or  in  small  bags.  When  the  Kaaba 
covering  at  Mecca  is  taken  down  each  year  and  renewed,  the 
old  cloth  is  cut  up  into  small  pieces  and  sold  for  charms. 

The  women  in  Mecca  use  an  amulet  of  special  power 
called  "Mishkash,"  which  is  supposed  to  exercise  its 
virtue  for  the  increase  of  the  family.  The  "Mishkash" 
is  really  a  copy  of  an  old  Venetian  coin,  representing  the 
Duke  of  Venice  kneeling  before  St.  Mark  on  the  one  side, 
and  on  the  other  side  is  the  image  of  Christ  surrounded 
by  stars.  Of  course  the  women  themselves  are  in  total 
ignorance  of  the  inscription  on  the  coin  and  of  its  Chris- 
tian character. 

According  to  the  principles  of  Islam  only  verses  from 
the  Koran  should  be  used,  but  the  door  of  superstition 

49 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 

once  being  set  ajar  by  Mohammed  himself,  as  we  know 
from  the  story  of  his  life,  it  is  now  wide  open.  The 
chapters  from  the  Koran  which  are  most  often  selected  for 
use  as  amulets  and  put  in  the  little  cases  shown  in  the 
picture  are  Surahs  I,  VI,  XVIII,  XXXVI,  XLIV,  LV, 
LXVII,  LXXVIII.  There  are  five  verses  in  the  Koran 
called  the  verses  of  protection,  "  Ayat-el-Hifdh,"  which 
are  the  most  powerful  to  defend  from  evil.  They  read  as 
follows  :  "  The  preservation  of  heaven  and  earth  is  no 
burden  unto  Him;"  "God  is  the  best  protector;" 
"They  guard  him  by  the  command  of  God;"  "We 
guard  him  from  every  stoned  devil;"  "A  protection 
from  every  rebellious  devil."  These  verses  are  written 
with  great  care  and  with  a  special  kind  of  ink  by  those 
who  deal  in  amulets,  and  are  then  sold  for  a  good  price 
to  Moslem  women  and  children.  The  ink  used  for 
writing  amulets  is  saffron  water,  the  juice  of  onions, 
water  from  the  sacred  well  of  Zem  Zem,  and  sometimes 
even  human  blood.  It  is  very  important  that  the  one 
who  writes  the  amulet  be  a  holy  man  in  the  Moslem  sense 
of  that  word.  We  are  told  in  Arabic  books  on  the  sub- 
ject (and  these  books  are  printed  by  the  thousands)  that 
"  The  diet  of  the  one  who  prepares  charms  depends  on  the 
kind  of  names  of  God  which  he  intends  to  write  or  recite. 
If  they  are  the  terrible  attributes  of  Allah,  then  he  must 
refrain  from  the  use  of  meat,  fish,  eggs,  honey  and  musk. 
If  they  are  His  amiable  attributes,  he  must  abstain  from 
butter,  curds,  vinegar,  salt  and  ambergris." 

60 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

A  favourite  kind  of  amulet  is  called  the  magic  square, 
and  I  have  drawn  one  here  for  you.  Most  of  the  Arabs 
believe  that  there  are  only  four  elements,  earth,  air,  fire 
and  water,  and  under  these  four  names  they  have  numer- 
ical squares,  as  you  see  them,  of  the  numbers  one  to  six- 
teen, and  whichever  way  you  add  the  columns  up  and 
down  or  across  the  total  is  always  thirty-four.  Try  it. 


EARTH 


WATER 


8 

11 

14 

1 

13 

2 

7 

12 

3 

16 

9 

6 

10 

5 

4 

15 

14 

4 

1 

15 

7 

9 

12 

6 

11 

5 

8 

10 

2 

16 

13 

3 

AIR 


FIRE 


15 

1 

4 

14 

10 

8 

5 

11 

6 

12 

9 

7 

3 

13 

16 

2 

1 

14 

15 

4 

8 

11 

10 

5 

12 

7 

6 

9 

13 

2 

3 

16 

Among  the  Shiah  Moslems,  whom  we  meet  everywhere 
in  East  Arabia,  the  most  common  amulet  is  called  Nadi- 


ol 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 
All.  It  consists  generally  of  a  lead  or  silver  plate  with 
little  bells  at  the  bottom,  inscribed  with  these  words : 

"Cry  aloud  to  Ali ;  he  is  the  possessor  of  wonders, 
From  him  you  will  find  help  from  trouble. 
He  takes  away  very  quickly  all  grief  and  anxiety 
By  the  mission  of  Mohammed  and  his  own  sanctity." 

There  are  innumerable  cases  where  such  amulets  are 
used  for  the  cure  of  disease.  The  native  doctors  firmly 
believe  that  when  every  remedy  fails,  the  book  of  Allah, 
if  properly  administered,  internally  or  externally,  will 
drive  away  pain  and  cure  the  patient. 

The  hospitals  and  book -shops  and  schools  will  doubt- 
less in  time  drive  out  the  use  of  amulets  in  Arabia,  and 
the  march  of  civilization,  with  its  modern  scientific 
miracles  and  spirit  of  investigation,  is  also  a  means  to  that 
end.  Nevertheless,  I  have  known  of  cases  where  printed 
Arabic  gospels  were  bought  to  be  used  as  amulets  and 
where  patients  tried  to  rub  off  ink  from  the  printed  paper 
used  to  wrap  powders  in  at  the  hospital,  in  order  to  drink 
the  solution  as  a  remedy. 

There  are  other  things  in  Arabia  which,  though  not 
amulets,  will  strike  you  as  very  strange.  First  there  is 
the  market  basket,  deftly  woven  out  of  palm  leaves. 
When  this  is  smeared  with  bitumen  inside,  it  will  hold 
water  as  well  as  an  American  pail  or  a  bucket.  The 
Arab  broom  is  made  of  palm  leaf  fibre,  with  a  short 
handle,  and  the  dish  cover  below  it  is  also  made  of  palm 

fibre  and  rope,  and  is  beautifully  stained  with  colours, 

52 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

and  when  they  bring  in  a  dish  of  Hassa  dates  to  enter- 
tain guests,  such  a  cover  is  always  put  on  to  protect  it 
from  the  flies. 

The  sewing  basket  and  the  fan  and  the  woman's  sandals 
are  also  very  interesting.  The  men's  sandals,  as  well  as 
the  women's  sandals,  have  a  peg  or  leather  thong,  which 
goes  between  the  big  toe  and  the  one  next  to  it,  and  by 
which  they  cling  to  their  footgear  in  a  way  that  would 
surprise  you.  Because  the  women's  slippers  are  made  of 
wood,  you  can  hear  their  footsteps  when  they  are  a  great 
way  off,  and  the  clap- clap  of  the  women's  sandals  is  a 
familiar  sound  to  all  of  us  here  in  Arabia. 

What  do  you  think  of  their  beautiful  furniture  I  There 
are  small  tables  used  to  hold  water  jars  or  trays  of  food, 
and  folding  bookstands  cleverly  made  out  of  one  piece  of 
hard  wood  that  fold  up  for  a  journey.  Larger  bookstands 
are  made  of  date  sticks  and  are  strong  enough  to  support 
a  big  volume  of  the  Koran.  The  Arabs  love  to  sit  and 
swing  back  and  forth  as  they  chant  its  chapters.  And 
lastly  is  something  that  looks  very  much  like  an  amulet, 
but  which  is  a  traveller's  bag  for  bread  and  dates,  often 
fastened  to  the  camel  saddle  by  leather  thongs.  Bread 
or  dates  kept  in  such  a  receptacle  will  keep  moist  for 
many,  many  hours  in  the  hot,  dry  climate  of  Arabia. 

The  Arabs  are  not  skilled  as  the  Japanese  and  Chinese 
are  with  tools,  nor  are  they  much  given  to  art  of  any  kind, 
but  you  must  admit  that  such  every -day  things  are  many 

of  them  artistic  and  some  of  them  really  beautiful. 

53 


vm 

THE  MOST  WONDERFUL  STONE  IN  THE  WOELD 

THE  Ten  Commandments  were  written  on  two 
tables  of  stone  but  these  original  stones  are  lost ; 
the  High  Priest  Aaron  had  twelve  most  precious 
stones  in  his  breast  plate  when  he  went  into  the  holy  place 
to  minister  ;  Jacob  placed  a  stone  for  a  pillow  when  he 
fled  from  his  brother,  but  no  one  has  found  this  old 
memorial.  Many  other  wonderful  stones  are  held  almost 
sacred  because  of  past  history.  Stone  worship  is  one  of 
the  oldest  forms  of  idolatry.  The  old  Druid  stone  in 
England,  where  the  priests  offered  sacrifice  during  their 
worship  and  where  even  human  blood  was  spilt  in  the 
name  of  religion,  are  examples. 

Plymouth  Eock  is  also  a  famous  stone  from  its  part  in 
history.  It  marks  the  place  where  the  Pilgrim  fathers 
landed  in  1620.  There  have  also  been  precious  stones 
which  have  had  a  remarkable  history  and  for  which  much 
money  and  often  life  was  sacrificed,  and  then  none  of  the 
boys  can  forget  the  pebble  which  David  found  in  the 
brook  and  which  was  the  weapon  of  his  victory  over  great 
Goliath. 

But  the  most  wonderful  stone  in  the  world  to-day  is 
none  of  these  that  I  have  told  you  of.  It  is  the  Black 
Stone  of  the  old  idol  temple  in  Arabia,  now  the  centre  of 
Mohammedan  worship. 

54 


Everyday  things  in  Arabia 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

The  greater  number  of  the  tribes  of  Arabia  in  Moham- 
med's day,  if  they  had  any  religion  at  all,  were  little 
better  than  fetich  worshippers,  each  tribe  having  its  own 
idol  or  god,  which  in  many  cases  was  some  peculiar  tree 
or  rock  in  their  territory,  around  which  they  built  rude 
shrines,  and  to  which  they  made  pilgrimages.  From 
time  immemorial,  however,  there  was  one  fetich  which  the 
whole  race  seemed  to  regard  as  peculiarly  sacred,  and  that 
was  the  Kaaba,  or  sacred  stone  of  Mecca.  It  is  probable 
that  this  stone  was  a  shooting  star,  which,  falling  from 
heaven  in  the  presence  of  spectators,  became  ever  after  an 
object  of  superstitious  veneration,  just  as  the  stone  of 
Diana  of  Ephesus  became  the  centre  of  worship  for  the 
Greek  world.  The  tribe  to  which  Mohammed  belonged 
had  held  for  several  generations  the  office  of  stewards 
to  this  great  national  shrine,  to  encourage  the  flocking 
of  pilgrims  to  the  Kaaba.  From  this  source  the  wealthy 
families  of  Mecca  got  the  great  part  of  their  money. 
They  admitted  impartially  figures  of  all  the  idols  of  the 
tribes  from  one  end  of  Arabia  to  the  other,  so  that  each 
man  might  feel  at  home  when  he  arrived  there  for  his 
devotions. 

When  Mohammed  had  fully  established  his  new  religion 
he  turned  out  all  the  old  deities  except  the  Black  Stone, 
which  he  himself  worshipped,  and  concerning  which  wor- 
ship he  left  minute  directions  for  his  followers.  Such 
was  the  inconsistency  of  the  prophet  whose  creed  was 
"There  is  no  god  but  Allah."  The  object  of  the  pil- 

55 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 
grimage  as  instituted  by  Mohammed  was  to  worship  the 
Sacred  Mosque  and  Kaaba.  According  to  Moslem 
writers,  the  Kaaba  was  built  by  Adam,  exactly  under 
the  spot  occupied  by  God's  throne  in  heaven.  It  is  an 
oblong  building  in  the  centre  of  the  mosque,  covered  with 
a  black  cloth,  and  in  it  is  the  sacred  Black  Stone  which 
came  down  from  heaven  snow-white,  and  was  turned 
black  by  the  sins  of  the  people. 

The  Black  Stone  is  located  on  the  southeast  corner  of 
the  Kaaba,  about  five  feet  from  the  ground.  It  is  prob- 
ably an  aerolite,  black  and  sprinkled  with  lighter  patches 
and  came  down  as  a  falling  star.  Many  years  after 
Mohammed's  death  it  was  stolen  by  some  of  the  Arabs  on 
the  Persian  Gulf  and  carried  across  the  desert  to  Katif ; 
when  it  was  carried  back  again  it  fell  from  the  camel  on 
its  long  journey  and  was  broken.  Now  a  silver  band 
holds  the  pieces  together  and  the  whole  stone  is  im- 
bedded in  the  wall. 

It  is  necessary  for  every  Moslem  to  visit  Mecca  at  least 
once  during  his  lifetime.  When  all  these  pilgrims  ar- 
rive within  a  short  distance  of  the  Holy  City,  they  must 
put  off  their  every-day  clothing  and  put  on  the  pilgrim 
garb,  which  consists  of  two  pieces  of  white  cloth, — one 
tied  around  the  loins  and  the  other  drawn  over  the  shoul- 
ders, under  their  arm,  leaving  one  shoulder  bare.  The 
pilgrims  are  allowed  to  wear  sandals,  but  not  shoes. 
Thus  clad  every  one  goes  in  turn  to  the  sacred  well  of 
Zem  Zem,  washes  his  whole  body  with  a  pailful  of  the 

56 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

water,  and  then  drinks  as  much  as  he  cares.  Then  he 
enters  the  u  door  of  peace  "  and  kisses  the  most  wonder- 
ful stone  in  the  world,  running  around  the  Kaaba  seven 
times  and  each  time  when  he  passes  the  stone  he  strokes 
it  with  his  hand  or  kisses  it.  After  this  all  the  Moslem 
pilgrims  say  the  regular  prayer  and  retire. 

The  next  day,  those  who  are  seeking  Paradise  along  the 
zigzag  road  of  Mohammed's  religion  must  do  other  things 
as  well.  They  must  visit  the  place  where  Abraham  is 
supposed  to  have  stood,  when  he  rebuilt  the  Kaaba. 
Then  they  must  run  between  the  mountains  of  Safa  and 
Milra,  two  little  hills  near  Mecca,  and  do  other  things 
every  day  until  the  sixth  day,  when  all  the  pilgrims 
surround  the  Kaaba  as  they  did  on  the  first  day.  On 
the  seventh  day  the  sermon  is  preached  from  the  great 
pulpit  in  the  middle  of  the  building.  The  preacher  no 
doubt  urges  all  those  who  are  present  to  persevere  in  their 
religion  and  make  converts  among  the  nations.  It  is  a 
large  gathering  indeed  which  comes  to  Mecca.  Between 
seventy  and  eighty  thousand  people  travel  every  year  to 
visit  the  city  from  every  part  of  the  Moslem  world, — 
Europe,  Asia,  Africa  and  the  islands  of  the  sea.  After 
the  sermon  is  over  two  more  days  are  spent  in  various 
visits  to'  sacred  places  around  Mecca  and  then  comes  the 
greatest  day  of  all,  which  is  celebrated  all  over  the 
Moslem  world,  namely,  the  day  of  Sacrifice. 

Although  Mohammedans  deny  the  death  of  Christ 
and  the  need  of  an  atonement  for  sin,  it  is  strange  that 

57 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 

this  great  feast  should  still  be  a  feast  of  sacrifice,  like 
that  of  the  Jews  of  old.  Every  earnest  believer  takes  a 
goat,  a  sheep  or  a  camel,  places  it  so  as  to  face  the  Kaaba 
and  plunges  a  knife  into  its  throat  as  he  cries  out — "  God 
is  great  and  Mohammed  is  His  apostle."  When  the 
sacrifice  is  over  the  pilgrim  is  allowed  again  to  shave  his 
beard  and  trim  his  nails  and  put  on  his  ordinary  cloth- 
ing, all  of  which  was  forbidden  during  the  ten  days  of 
pilgrimage.  He  is  also  given  a  certificate  stating  that  he 
has  finished  the  pilgrimage  and  is  now  ready  for  Para- 
dise, or  words  to  that  effect. 

The  most  of  the  pilgrims  who  come  back  from  Mecca 
are  not  any  better  for  going,  because  the  city  is  the  centre 
not  only  of  diseases  such  as  cholera  and  plague,  which 
cause  the  death  of  many,  but  is  also  the  centre  of  im- 
morality and  wickedness. 

Although  travellers  have  visited  Mecca  by  pretending 
to  be  Mohammedans  and  at  the  risk  of  their  lives,  no 
Christian,  were  he  known  to  be  so,  would  be  allowed  to 
enter  the  sacred  city.  The  first  European  to  visit  Mecca 
was  an  English  sailor  boy,  called  Joseph  Pitts,  who  was 
captured  as  a  slave  in  Algiers  and  taken  to  Mecca  against 
his  will.  He  was  forced  to  become  a  Moslem,  but  after- 
wards escaped  to  England  and  wrote  a  book  on  what  he 
had  seen. 

The  new  railroad  which  is  now  being  built  by  the 
Turkish  government  from  Damascus  to  Medina  and  on  to 
Mecca  will  soon  be  completed,  and  who  can  say  whether 

58 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

it  will  not  open  up  the  whole  country  to  the  Gospel  f 
A  big  American  locomotive  will  soon  be  puffing  steam 
and  sounding  its  whistle  right  near  the  Kaaba,  over 
against  the  most  wonderful  stone  in  the  world. 


IX 

THE  CAMEL  DRIVER  WHO  BECAME  A  PROPHET 

IF  one  could  have  all  the  boys  of  the  world  pass  by  in 
single  file  and  take  down  their  names  one  by  one, 
there  would  be  a  great  many  who  bore  the  same 
name.  Johns  and  Henrys  and  Carls  and  Hans  there 
would  be  by  the  thousands,  but  there  would  be  no  name 
which  so  many  boys  had  in  common,  I  am  sure,  as  the 
name  of  Mohammed.  It  is  a  very  safe  estimate  to  say 
that  there  are  living  in  the  world  to-day  no  less  than  five 
million  boys  and  men  who  bear  that  name. 

Yet  I  wonder  how  many  of  you  know  who  Mohammed 
was,  where  he  lived  and  died,  and  why  he  has  such  a 
world- wide  reputation  I  He  was  a  poor  orphan ;  his 
father  died  before  he  was  born  and  his  mother  only  a  few 
years  after,  but  although  he  was  so  forlorn  and  lived  in  a 
very  barren  part  of  Arabia,  in  one  of  the  valleys  of  the 
city  of  Mecca,  he  had  powerful  relatives  who  were  kind 
to  him  and  helped  him.  He  was  born  in  the  year 
570  A.  D.,  about  a  thousand  years  before  Columbus  dis- 
covered America.  His  mother's  name  was  Amina,  which 
means  faithful. 

There  are  many  strange  stories  told  about  him  when  he 
was  a  boy.  One  story  is  that  while  he  was  away  in  the 
desert  with  his  foster  brother,  living  with  the  Arab  tribes 
and  growing  strong  by  exercise  and  drinking  camels' 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

milk,  one  day  two  men  dressed  in  white  came  and  threw 
him  on  the  ground.  They  then  took  out  his  heart,  by 
opening  his  breast,  and  squeezed  out  a  drop  of  black 
blood,  and  put  the  heart  back  again,  closing  up  the 
wound.  The  Arabs  believe  that  in  this  way  he  got  rid  of 
his  original  sin  and  was  made  pure.  As  a  boy  he  was 
pleasing  and  industrious,  and  won  the  name  of  "the 
faithful  one."  However,  at  the  time  of  Mohammed's 
childhood,  morals  and  manners  in  Mecca  were  as  bad  as 
possible,  and  he  did  not  have  many  good  influences  to 
help  him  in  the  right  way. 

When  he  was  about  twelve  years  old,  his  uncle,  Abu- 
Talib,  took  him  along  on  a  journey  to  Syria,  as  far  as 
Bozra,  a  town  that  is  mentioned  in  the  Bible,  and  not  the 
same  as  Busrah  on  the  Persian  Gulf.  This  journey  lasted 
for  some  months,  and  it  was  at  this  time  that  Mohammed 
met  a  Christian  monk,  who,  it  is  reported,  told  Abu- 
Talib  to  take  good  care  of  the  youth,  for  great  dignity 
awaited  him. 

On  this  journey  'Mohammed  for  the  first  time  came  in 
touch  with  Christianity,  and  was  surely  impressed  by^the 
national  and  social  customs  of  Christians  ;  and  being  a 
bright  boy,  he  was  easily  able  to  see  the  difference  be- 
tween the  habits  and  religion  of  his  own  nation  and  those 
of  the  Christians.  It  was  after  this  journey  that  he  was 
anxious  to  reform  the  dreadful  idolatry  and  wicked  ways 
of  the  Arabian  people.  From  the  age  of  twelve  to  twenty 
he  lived  in  the  usual  manner  of  the  boys  of  his  day,  tend- 

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ing  sheep  on  the  hillsides  and  valleys  of  Mecca,  and  he 
was  so  honest  and  pure  and  fair  during  these  years,  and 
such  a  contrast  to  those  around  him,  that  everybody  gave 
him  the  name  I  told  you  of— Al  Amin,  i.  e.,  "  the  faith- 
ful." During  this  time,  too,  he  learned  something  of 
what  war  was  like,  for  he  went  with  his  uncles  on  two 
expeditions  to  fight  against  another  tribe.  When  Mo- 
hammed was  twenty-five  years  old,  his  uncle  suggested 
that  he  should  take  charge  of  a  caravan  for  a  rich  lady 
living  in  Mecca,  and  trading  products  of  Mecca  for  other 
things  from  Syria  and  other  parts  of  Arabia.  On  this 
journey  Mohammed  again  came  in  contact  with  Chris- 
tians and  Jews,  and  he  must  have  noticed,  too,  how, 
while  professing  to  serve  and  love  the  one  true  God,  they 
always  seemed  to  be  quarrelling  about  their  religion. 
Perhaps  he  saw  the  truth  in  both  systems  and  afterwards 
thought  he  could  make  out  of  them  one  simple  creed  and 
unite  all  mankind  in  the  worship  of  the  only  true  God. 

After  his  return  from  this  trip,  he  was  married  to  Kha- 
dijah,  by  whom  he  had  been  employed  as  camel  driver, 
making  zigzag  journeys  across  the  country  to  sell  and  ex- 
change his  merchandise.  After  his  marriage  he  lived 
happily,  so  we  are  told,  until  his  fortieth  year,  when  he 
began  to  have  dreams,  and  became  persuaded  that  God 
had  called  him  to  be  a  prophet.  Many  "verses  of  the 
Koran  were  recited  and  written  down.  Mohammed 
wanted  most  of  all  at  this  time  that  his  countrymen  should 
put  away  their  idols  and  worship  only  Allah,  but  some 

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IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

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of  them  were  very  angry  and  would  have  killed  him,  if 
he  had  not  hidden. 

Mohammed  and  Khadijah  had  six  children,  but  most  of 
them  died  when  they  were  young.  His  daughter  Fatimah, 
when  she  was  old  enough,  was  married  to  her  adopted 
brother,  Ali ;  her  name  is  very  much  honoured  and  used 
by  Moslems  everywhere. 

Sometimes  Mohammed  would  have  his  dreams  very 
often,  and  then  again  he  would  go  a  long  time  without  a 
revelation.  But  he  began  to  believe  in  himself  and  told 
his  visions  to  others,  and  they  too  began  to  believe  in 
him  as  a  prophet  of  God.  His  relatives  were  the  first 
ones  to  come  out  and  follow  the  new  religion.  He  wanted 
to  take  the  idols  out  of  the  Kaaba  at  Mecca,  and  preached 
against  idolatry,  and  for  this  reason  the  keepers  of  the 
Kaaba  were  very  angry  and  persecuted  him  for  his  preach- 
ing. When  the  persecution  became  too  bad,  he  then  re- 
canted or  withdrew  some  of  his  statements  in  regard  to  the 
idols  and  the  true  worship,  and  he  told  them  he  had  had 
a  vision  or  revelation  that  they  might  retain  their  most 
important  gods,  or  rather,  the  favourite  ones.  But  after 
a  few  days  he  repented  of  this  leniency,  and  told  the 
Meccans  he  had  made  a  mistake  and  all  the  idols  must  be 
destroyed,  and  they  must  worship  Allah  only.  The  peo- 
ple began  to  treat  him  badly  and  they  would  have  killed 
him  if  he  had  not  fled  to  Medina.  The  persecutors  fol- 
lowed him  and  nearly  overtook  him,  when  he  came  to  a 
cave  and  slipped  inside,  and  one  tradition  says  that  after 

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the  prophet  (on  him  be  prayers  and  peace)  had  gone  in- 
side, some  pigeons  came  and  sat  on  the  edge  of  the  cave ; 
also  a  spider  quickly  wove  a  web  across  the  mouth  of  the 
cave  and  when  his  pursuers  came  and  looked  they  said  : 
"He  is  not  in  there,  for  see  the  pigeons  and  the  spider's 
web  ;  he  cannot  be  inside,"  and  thus  God  preserved  the 
life  of  Mohammed.  Afterwards  those  men  turned  back, 
and  he  came  out  of  the  cave  and  went  on  to  Medina. 
And  there  his  religion  prospered,  and  Mohammed  saw  a 
vision  of  the  power  he  might  hold,  so  little  by  little  the 
stern  purpose  of  his  life — to  cleanse  his  people  from  idol 
worship — became  weaker.  He  gave  in,  here  a  little  and 
there  a  little,  and  gave  to  his  followers  many  harmful 
privileges,  which  he  said  were  revelations  from  the  Angel 
Gabriel  to  him.  These  same  privileges  have  degraded 
the  nations  they  have  governed,  and  the  religion  of  the 
sword  and  of  plunder  appealed  to  the  human  heart  more 
than  spiritual  things  possibly  could.  He  soon  gained 
many  thousands  of  followers,  and  grew  strong  and  bold, 
and  began  to  organize  bands  to  go  out  and  kill  and  des- 
troy all  who  would  not  follow  the  new  religion. 

And  thus  the  camel  driver  became  a  great  prophet. 
His  name  to-day  is  called  out  five  times  a  day  from  the 
minarets  (i.  e.,  mosque  steeples)  in  Central  Asia,  along 
the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  in  the  heart  of  Africa, 
in  India  and  the  islands  of  the  sea,  as  well  as  all  over 
Arabia  and  Persia  and  the  Turkish  Empire.  And  if  you 
wish  to  help  bring  back  these  nations  to  Jesus  Christ  and 

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away  from  Mohammed,  you  must  be  up  with  the  muezzin 
before  the  dawn,  and  pray  and  call  others  to  prayer  and 
work  in  earnest,  so  that  the  children  of  this  generation 
may  have  a  chance  to  learn  about  our  Saviour  and  theirs, 
and  of  all  the  helpful  things  He  has  taught  us. 

11  Hark  !     7Tis  the  muezzin's  cry ; 

Pray,  children,  pray  ; 
Moslems  in  darkness  lie, 

Pray,  children,  pray. 
Thousands  in  bondage  die ; 
O  hear,  while  moments  fly, 
Yours  ia  a  calling  high  : 

Pray,  children,  pray." 


65 


THE  LANGUAGE  OF  THE  ANGELS 

THE  Arabs  are  a  proud  and  noble  race.  They 
are  proud  of  their  liberty  and  of  their  free  open- 
air  desert  customs.  They  are  proud  of  their 
religion  and  of  their  prophet.  They  are  proud  of  their 
history  and  of  their  patriarchal  descent.  But  most  of 
all,  they  are  proud  of  their  language,  one  of  the  oldest 
and  most  wonderful  forms  of  human  speech.  Mohammed 
himself  in  his  Koran,  which  you  know  is  the  Moslem 
Bible,  speaks  of  the  Arab  tongue  as  "  the  language  of  the 
angels. "  He  and  the  Arabs  believed  that  Adam  and 
Eve  spake  Arabic  in  Paradise,  and  that  the  language  of 
revelation  in  which  God  spoke  to  His  prophets,  Abraham, 
Moses  and  Solomon,  was  none  other  than  the  language  of 
the  desert,  the  speech  of  the  Arabs. 

One  of  the  most  learned  Arabs  who  lived  about  tnree 
hundred  years  after  Mohammed  said:  "  The  wisdom  of 
God  hath  come  down  upon  three  things :— the  brain  of 
the  Franks,  the  hand  of  the  Chinese  and  the  tongue  of 
the  Arabs.  ' '  What  this  Arab  philosopher  meant  was  that 
while  the  people  of  Europe  are  distinguished  for  their 
power  of  invention  and  discovery,  the  Chinese  are  dis- 
tinguished as  artists  and  artisans,  but  the  Arabs  are  all 
of  them  born  orators  and  poets.  The  people  of  Europe, 
he  meant  to  say,  have  brain  power,  the  people  of  the 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

Orient  skill  in  handicraft,  but  the  Arabs,  eloquence. 
If  you  will  read  the  Book  of  Job,  which  was  doubtless 
written  in  Arabia  and  describes  early  Arabian  life,  or 
read  the  latter  chapters  of  Mohammed's  Koran,  or  better 
still  some  of  the  Arabian  poetry,  you  will  appreciate  the 
truth  of  this  wonderful  statement. 

The  first  thing  that  is  remarkable  about  the  language 
of  the  Arabs  is  its  wide-spread  use.  Like  English  it  has 
spilled  itself  all  over  the  map  of  the  world,  far  beyond  its 
original  limits,  and  like  English  it  was  carried  by  com- 
merce and  by  conquest,  by  merchants  and  by  mission- 
aries. 

Some  time  ago  an  American  typewriter  firm  in  adver- 
tising a  machine  with  Arabic  characters  made  the  state- 
ment that  the  Arabic  alphabet  is  used  by  more  people 
than  any  other  alphabet  in  the  world.  Some  one  thought 
that  this  was  an  exaggeration,  and  asked  a  professor  of 
languages,  "How  big  a  lie  is  that?"  He  answered: 
"It  is  true."  The  total  population  of  all  the  countries 
whose  inhabitants  use  the  Arabic  "ABC  "—if  they  use 
any  at  all — is  larger  than  the  number  of  those  who  use 
the  Latin  alphabet  or  the  Chinese  character.  The  Arabic 
Koran  is  read  by  the  Moslem  boys  in  the  day-schools  not 
only  of  Arabia,  but  of  Turkey,  of  Afghanistan,  Persia, 
Java,  Sumatra,  the  whole  of  North  Africa  and  through- 
out Central  Asia.  In  the  Philippine  Islands  there  are 
three  hundred  thousand  Mohammedans  whose  only 
alphabet  came  from  Arabia,  and  as  far  west  as  the 

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FIRST  CHAPTER  OF  THE  KORAN 
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IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

mosques  of  Morocco  the  Arabic  tongue  has  travelled  and 
become  the  language  of  law  and  commerce  and  religion. 

When  the  early  Arabs  in  their  conquests  crossed  the 
strait  between  Africa  and  Spain  and  conquered  that 
country  they  left  many  words  behind.  And  therefore 
many  of  the  place  names  in  Spain  to-day  are  Arabic. 
Gibraltar,  for  example,  is  the  corrupted  form  of  Jebel 
Tarik,  which  means  the  mountain  of  Tarik,  the  Arab 
general  who  first  crossed  the  straits  with  his  soldiers. 
And  Quadiliquiver,  one  of  the  rivers  of  Spain,  should  be 
spelled  Wady  El  Kebir,  or  the  Big  Eiver. 

Even  the  English  language  has  a  number  of  words  that 
came  as  Arab  guests  to  the  feast  of  reason  and  have  been 
adopted  into  our  family  and  put  into  our  dictionary. 
When  you  speak  of  algebra,  ciphers,  zero,  alchemy,  alcove, 
minaret,  alcohol,  coffee,  sofa,  amber,  artichoJces,  gazelles  or 
magazine  you  are  using  good  Arabic  words  which  nearly 
every  Arab  would  understand.  To  use  these  words, 
however,  is  quite  a  different  thing  from  speaking  "the 
language  of  the  angels  "  correctly.  It  is  easier  to  borrow 
a  carpenter's  jack-knife  than  to  acquire  his  skill  in  build- 
ing a  house.  Many  languages  have  borrowed  from  the 
Arabs  and  the  Arabs  have  borrowed  from  them  in  return, 
but  no  language  is  richer  than  the  Arabic  in  its  number 
of  words. 

Would  you  like  to  know  how  the  boys  and  girls  talk  in 
Arabia?  If  you  have  read  "Topsy  Turvy  Land"  you 
will  remember  how  they  write  their  words  backward  and 

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begin  to  read  at  what  we  call  the  end  of  the  book.  Their 
talk  as  well  as  their  writing  seems  to  us  at  first  very 
topsy  turvy.  Of  course,  I  need  not  tell  you  how  much 
they  talk,  for  in  that  respect  they  are  just  like  the  boys 
and  girls  in  America.  As  they  speak  a  language,  how- 
ever, very  different  from  English,  I  am  sure  you  would 
like  to  hear  a  little  about  it.  Arabic  is  one  of  the  oldest 
and  most  beautiful  languages,  and  also  one  of  the  hardest 
to  learn.  It  has  so  many  words  that  their  name  for  a 
dictionary  is  "Kamoos,"  which  means  "  an  ocean. " 
They  have  five  hundred  different  names  for  a  lion  and 
two  hundred  words  for  serpent.  It  is  said  that  there  are 
one  thousand  different  terms  in  Arabic  for  sword,  and 
eighty  different  words  for  honey. 

Like  English  the  Arabic  language  has  grammar  with 
many  rules  (and  more  exceptions)  and  the  boys  dislike  it 
just  as  much  as  some  of  you  do.  They  have  a  severe 
struggle  with  the  alphabet  because  each  letter  has  three 
different  forms,  as  it  is  used  in  the  beginning,  the  middle 
or  the  end  of  a  word  ;  and  then  there  are  but  fifteen  con- 
jugations and  twenty  different  ways  of  forming  the  plural, 
not  to  speak  of  all  the  moods  and  tenses  and  the  irregular 
verbs. 

Some  people  think  that  Arabic  is  the  most  difficult 
language  in  the  world.  Keith  Falconer,  the  first  mis- 
sionary to  Arabia,  said,  "Arabic  grammars  should  be 
strongly  bound  because  learners  are  so  often  found  to 
dash  them  frantically  on  the  ground."  Another  mis- 

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IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

sionary  said  that  he  would  rather  cross  Africa  from 
Alexandria  to  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  than  undertake  a 
second  time  to  master  the  Arabic  speech. 

I  shall  never  forget  my  early  struggles  with  the  lan- 
guage, nor  the  place  where  I  sat  down  to  learn  my 
lesson  with  Dr.  Cornelius  Van  Dyke.  He  was  a  master 
of  Arabic  and  with  Dr.  Eli  Smith  translated  the  whole 
Bible  into  the  Arabic  speech.  Here  it  was  in  the  shade 
of  his  beautiful  veranda  at  Beirut,  Syria,  that  I  began  to 
learn  the  irregular  verb.  It  takes  a  long  time  for 
grown-up  people  to  learn  a  new  language,  but  it  does  not 
seem  hard  for  the  Arab  boys  and  girls. 

Beside  the  proper  talk  of  grown-up  people  there  is  baby 
talk  in  Arabia  which  mothers  teach  the  little  brown 
toddlers  before  they  walk  out  of  the  mat-huts  and  the 
black,  camel-hair  tents  into  the  wide  world.  Yes,  and 
there  are  also  slang  words  which  the  camel  drivers  and 
the  donkey  boys  use  with  and  on  each  other. 

The  baby  talk  is  much  like  English.  Father  is  baba ; 
dog  is  wowwow  ;  pretty  is  noonoo  ;  stop  is  tootoo  ;  chicken 
is  Jcookoo,  and  when  baby  falls  they  say  baff! 

The  language  of  these  little  angels  and  the  grown-up 
ones  in  Arabia  is  very  poetical.  The  Arabs,  because 
they  live  in  the  desert  and  look  up  into  the  big,  blue  sky 
and  far  out  to  the  horizon  where  the  mirage  paints  desert 
pictures  every  day,  are  full  of  imagination  and  live  in  an 
atmosphere  of  poetry.  They  love  jingling  words  and 
proverbs  and  pretty  sayings  and  figures  of  speech. 

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ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 

A  mosquito  has  only  a  sting  in  New  Jersey.  In  Arabia 
they  call  him  aboofas,  which  means  "  father-of-an-ax  "  ! 
In  America  a  tramp  is  a  tramp,  but  the  Arabs  call  him  a 
son-of~the-road.  And  what  could  be  prettier  than  their 
name  for  echo,  bint-el-jebel,  "  daughter  of  the  mountain  "  t 
Why,  there  is  a  whole  fairy  story  in  that  one  word  !  And 
if  you  go  down  the  columns  of  the  Arabic  dictionary  you 
can  find  many  a  story  locked  up  in  some  word  and  only 
waiting  to  be  opened. 

In  North  Arabia  when  they  say,  "  How-do-you-do, " 
the  proper  expression  is,  "What  is  the  colour  of  your 
condition? "  This  may  be  philosophical,  but  it  does  not 
make  good  sense  in  English.  Strawberries  are  called 
French  mulberries,  and  the  name  given  to  potatoes  when 
first  brought  to  Bahrein  was  aliyeywellam ;  why  this  name 
was  given,  I  cannot  tell.  Where  could  you  find  a  better 
name  for  wine  than  the  Arab  um-el-lchabaithj  "  mother  of 
vices"  ?  No  wonder  all  the  Arab  children  are  staunch 
prohibitionists.  And  you  will  know  more  about  the 
nights  in  Arabia  when  I  tell  you  that  the  common  name 
for  jackal  is  "son- of -howling"  ! 

"  The  language  of  the  angels  "  is  not  altogether  lovely 
and  beautiful ;  alas,  it  bears  the  marks  of  a  false  religion 
all  over  it  like  scratches  on  marble  or  ink-stains  on  a 
beautiful  piece  of  handwriting.  Mohammed's  life  and 
Mohammed's  teaching  were  not  like  the  life  and  teaching 
of  Jesus  Christ,  and  so  the  Arabic  language  abounds  in 
words  that  are  not  pure  and  not  lovely.  The  mission- 

72 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

ariea  in  Egypt  and  in  Syria  have  done  much  to  purify 
and  elevate  the  language  of  the  Arabs  by  giving  them 
Christian  books  and  papers  and  above  all  the  Holy  Bible 
in  their  own  tongue.  The  Arab  children  in  the  mission 
schools  now  sing  Christian  hymns  and  many  of  the  stories 
that  you  love  to  read,  such  as  "Ben  Hur"  and  " Black 
Beauty "  and  "Robinson  Crusoe,'7  have  been  translated 
into  Arabic.  At  the  Beirut  [press  alone  about  twenty- 
five  million  pages  of  Christian  books  are  printed  every 
year. 

When  the  Bible  takes  the  place  of  the  Koran,  the  Arab 
speech  with  all  its  beauty  and  strength  will  become  more 
than  ever  "  the  language  of  the  angels. " 


73 


XI 
PEAELS  AND  PEAEL  DIVEES 

NEAELY  all  the  British  India  steamers  in  their 
zigzag  journeys  up  the  Persian  Gulf,  calling 
first  at  the  Arabian  coast  and  then  at  the 
Persian  coast,  stop  at  the  pearl  islands  of  Bahrein.  Half- 
way up  the  Gulf  and  thirty  miles  from  the  mainland  of 
Arabia,  this  group  of  islands  has  been  famous  for  cen- 
turies as  the  most  valuable  pearl  fishery  in  the  world. 
For  at  least  two  thousand  years  the  Arabs  have  been 
diving  in  these  waters  and  bringing  up  the  costly  shells. 
Before  the  days  of  Christ,  and  even  before  the  time  of 
Solomon,  pearls  from  Bahrein  were  shipped  to  the  West- 
ern world,  and  it  is  probable  that  the  dress  and  the  con- 
versation of  the  men  and  the  boys  of  to-day  is  about  the 
same  as  it  was  a  thousand  years  ago.  The  boats  are 
probably  of  the  same  pattern,  with  very  little  improve- 
ment. 

Bahrein  is  an  Arabic  word  which  means  the  two  seas, 
and  this  name  was  given  to  the  islands  because  the  Arabs 
fancied  that  here  two  seas  met,  the  fresh  water  and  the 
salt  water  mingling  together.  The  islands  have  very 
little  rainfall — during  the  summer  none  at  all — and  yet 
they  are  famous  for  their  fresh-water  springs,  which  find 
their  source  on  the  mainland  of  Arabia  or  Persia,  and 

the  water  not  only  bubbles  out  in  pools  and  wells  on 

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IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

shore,  but  below  the  tide  level  there  are  fresh-water 
springs  several  miles  out  at  sea.  You  would  be  inter- 
ested to  see  the  Arabs  go  out  in  their  boats,  place  a  bam- 
boo over  the  opening  in  the  rock  and  then  collect  fresh 
water  above  sea  level  in  their  great  leather  skins. 

Bahrein  is  historically  most  interesting,  because  here  the 
old  Chaldeans  and  Phoenicians  made  their  home.  Some 
of  the  mounds  on  the  island  are  older  than  the  ruins  of 
Babylon,  and  it  is  said  that  the  Phoenicians  worshipped 
the  fish-god  who,  it  is  supposed,  carried  Noah's  ark  over 
the  flood. 

The  pearl  fisheries  at  Bahrein  employ  about  3,500 
boats,  large  and  small.  The  boats  measure  from  one  to 
fifty  tons.  The  smaller  boats  carry  from  three  to  fifteen 
men  and  work  near  the  shore ;  the  large  boats,  employing 
from  fifteen  to  thirty  men,  fish  all  over  the  Gulf.  It  is  a 
pretty  sight  to  see  the  fleet  sailing  out  of  the  harbour, 
the  large  sails,  set  to  the  wind,  gleaming  white  in  the 
sun,  the  blue  waters  underneath  and  the  bluer  sky  over- 
head. Have  you  ever  seen  a  diving  outfit?  It  looks 
rather  ungainly  to  me.  The  Arab  divers  do  not  use  any- 
thing so  elaborate  as  do  the  divers  in  America.  White 
overalls  to  cover  their  dark  skin  (because  they  say  sharks 
do  not  care  for  white  people),  a  fatam,  or  clothes-pin  on 
the  nose,  and  leather  thimbles  for  scratching  up  the 
shells,  and  a  basket  to  hold  the  catch,  with  a  rope  at- 
tached to  a  girdle  to  draw  them  up  with— this  is  the 
complete  outfit.  When  prayers  have  been  said  and  a 

75 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

A  R  A  B  I  A 

Bismillah,  down  he  goes,  quickly  fills  the  basket,  and 
with  a  tug  on  the  rope,  he  is  hauled  up,  his  basket  is 
emptied  while  he  takes  a  short  breathing  spell,  then 
down  again  ;  and  so  on  from  sunrise  to  sunset. 

The  divers  pass  through  many  dangers  in  bringing  the 
pearls  from  the  bottom  of  the  ocean  to  the  surface. 
Sharks  are  the  most  terrifying,  and  during  the  pearl 
season  a  number  of  divers  lose  their  lives,  or  are  maimed ; 
a  leg  or  an  arm  has  to  be  amputated  because  the  cruel, 
sharp,  powerful  mouth  of  the  shark  caught  the  fisherman 
while  he  was  seeking  goodly  pearls  for  us.  A  large 
number  of  them  are  afflicted  with  rheumatism  as  a  con- 
sequence of  their  calling.  In  the  boat,  besides  the  men 
who  are  doing  the  work,  is  a  man  who  is  a  substitute  for 
them  in  prayer.  The  divers  are  too  busy  to  observe  the 
stated  hours  of  prayer,  so  this  man  will  repeat  the  prayers 
in  place  of  each  man.  He  is  the  Levite,  and  performs  the 
religious  ceremonies  for  every  other  man  and  boy.  He 
must  be  occupied  all  the  time  on  the  boats  where  there  is 
a  crew  of  thirty  men,  and  he  must  say  the  prayers  five 
times  a  day  for  each  man. 

The  Arabs  say  that  pearls  come  from  a  raindrop  which 
fell  while  the  oyster  had  its  mouth  open  ;  each  drop  of 
rain  thus  caught  is  a  prize  for  the  diver.  "  Heaven  born 
and  cradled  in  the  deep  blue  sea,"  it  is  the  purest  of  gems 
and,  in  their  eyes,  the  most  precious.  When  the  pearl 
oysters  are  brought  up,  they  are  left  on  deck  over  night, 
and  next  morning  are  opened  by  means  of  a  curved  knife 

76 


The  Evolution  of  a  Pearl  Button 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

six  inches  long.  Until  a  few  years  ago,  all  the  shells  were 
thrown  back  into  the  sea  as  useless,  but  now  they  are 
brought  to  shore  by  the  ton  and  deposited  in  some  mer- 
chant's yard.  He  employs  natives  to  scrape  off  the  out- 
side roughness,  and  then  they  are  packed  in  wooden 
crates  and  exported  in  large  quantities. 

On  shore  the  pearls  are  classified  according  to  weight, 
size,  shape,  colour  and  brilliancy.  You  would  think  the 
pearl  merchants  a  strange  kind  of  people.  They  carry 
the  most  valuable  pearls  around  with  them  everywhere, 
tied  up  in  turkey-red  twill.  They  have  no  safes  nor 
banks,  so  the  only  safe  way  they  can  think  of  is  to  carry 
them  around  and  run  the  risk  of  being  knocked  down 
and  robbed  ;  but  since  the  Indian  government  has  made 
Bahrein  a  protectorate,  such  robberies  are  rare. 

The  pearl  merchants  are  called  tawawis,  which  means 
those  who  handle  the  brass  sieve,  or  tas.  When  the 
pearls  are  brought  on  shore,  they  are  classified  according 
to  size  first  of  all,  and  to  do  this,  each  merchant  has  a 
nest  of  beautiful  sieves  fitting  one  into  the  other.  The 
smallest  has  holes  as  big  as  the  end  of  a  pencil,  and  they 
go  down  gradually  in  size  until  the  largest  sieve,  which  is 
about  six  inches  across,  has  holes  as  fine  as  mustard  seeds. 
Any  day  during  the  pearl  season  you  may  see  the  Arab 
merchants  sitting  cross-legged  in  their  houses,  sifting 
pearls,  and  when  they  are  classified  and  piled  up  in  little 
heaps,  white  and  shining  in  the  bright  sunlight  on  the 
red  cloth  that  covers  the  floor,  it  is  a  sight  worth  seeing. 

77 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 

The  total  value  of  the  pearl  harvest  each  year  is  at  least 
a  million  dollars,  bat  most  of  the  profit  goes  into  the 
hands  of  the  dealers.  The  divers  work  for  wages,  and 
many  of  them  are  heavily  in  debt.  In  spite  of  the  dangers 
they  incur,  the  divers  love  their  work,  because  pearl  div- 
ing always  has  in  it  the  element  of  gambling.  One  may 
work  a  whole  day  and  find  only  pearls  of  small  value, 
and  then  perhaps  bring  up  a  fortune  in  an  hour.  The 
most  beautiful  pearl  I  ever  saw  was  found  in  the  waters 
at  Bahrein  some  ten  years  ago,  and  was  sold  for  ten  thou- 
sand dollars.  It  must  have  been  to  such  a  fortunate  pearl 
diver  that  Browning  referred  in  his  verses  : 

"  There  are  two  moments  in  a  diver's  life  : 
One  when,  a  beggar,  he  prepares  to  plunge, 
Then  when,  a  prince,  he  rises  with  his  prize." 

The  time  for  pearl  diving  is  from  May  until  the  end  of 
September.  During  the  winter  months  the  cold  weather 
interferes  with  the  work,  and  the  men  live  inshore. 
Then  it  is  that  they  come  in  crowds  to  our  hospital,  and 
we  have  the  joy  of  preaching  to  them  from  the  parable  of 
the  Pearl  of  great  price,  and  no  audience  appreciates  a 
sermon  on  that  text  as  much  as  the  men  who  know  what 
it  costs  to  bring  up  the  pearls.  You  remember  the  par- 
able :  "The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  unto  a  man  that 
is  a  merchant  seeking  goodly  pearls,  and  having  found 
one  pearl  of  great  price,  he  went  and  sold  all  that  he  had 
and  bought  it."  When  we  tell  the  Arabs  that  the  Pearl 

78 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

of  great  price  was  the  kingdom  of  God,  peace  and  right- 
eousness and  joy,  which  Jesus  Christ  purchased  for  us  at 
the  cost  of  His  own  life  and  now  offers  freely  to  all  who 
will  believe  in  Him,  they  understand  something  of  the 
message. 

Will  you  not  pray  for  the  pearl  divers  of  Bahrein  that 
many  of  them  may  find  the  Pearl  of  great  price,  and  that 
their  humble  homes,— mat-huts  along  the  shore  of  the 
great  sea— may  be  made  glad  by  the  joy  of  a  Christian 
civilization  and  the  knowledge  of  our  Saviour  f  It  is  not 
hard  to  love  them  for  their  own  sake,  and  I  well  remem- 
ber many  a  happy  hour  spent  with  them  in  their  boats  or 
sitting  on  the  beach,  talking  over  their  work.  Sir  Ed  win 
Arnold  referred  to  them  in  these  lines  : 

"  Dear  as  the  wet  diver  to  the  eyes 
Of  his  pale  wife,  who  waits  and  weeps  on  shore, 
By  sands  of  Bahrein  in  the  Persian  Gnlf  ; 
Plunging  all  day  in  the  blue  waves ;  at  night, 
Having  made  up  his  toll  of  precious  pearls, 
Rejoins  her  in  their  hat  upon  the  shore." 


79 


XII 
A  PIONEEE  JOUENEY  ON  THE  PIEATE  COAST 

IT   was   on   Saturday   morning,   February    9,   1901, 
that  Elias,  our  colporteur,  and  I  started  for  a  jour- 
ney along  the  eastern  coast  of  Arabia,  and,  as  we 
hoped,  i  nland.     O  ur  expectations  of  a  long  camel  j  our ney 
and  the  sight  of  villages  not  yet  marked  on  the  map  be- 
tween the  coast  and  Muscat  were  disappointed.     But  the 
result  was  a  journey  of  440  miles  and  more  along  the  coast 
to  the  rocky  cape  that  guards  the  narrow  entrance  to  the 
Gulf.    Our  experiences  were  so  interesting  that  I  will  re- 
late some  of  them  to  you. 

Did  you  ever  read  the  droll  story,  "  Three  Men  in  a 
Boat"  ?  Well,  we  were  eleven  men  in  a  boat,  not  to 
speak  of  a  fine  Arab  horse  and  a  yelping  greyhound,  pres- 
ents from  the  Euler  of  Bahrein  to  the  Euler  of  Abu 
Thabi.  Our  boat  was  of  the  usual  native  style  without 
any  cabin  or  even  an  awning,  and^  measured  twenty  feet 
across  the  beam  and  fifty  from  bowsprit  to  poop.  The 
noble  quadruped  had  the  largest  share  of  the  scanty  space 
midships ;  the  dog  was  confined  to  the  forecastle  lest 
prayers  be  impossible ;  for  the  Mohammedans  believe 
that  the  dog  is  an  unclean  animal,  and  that  it  is  impos- 
sible to  pray  in  any  place  where  a  dog  has  walked  or  sat 
without  first  washing  it.  The  two  first-class  passengers 
and  their  boxes  were  on  the  left  side  of  the  poop  j  the 

80 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

crew  slept,  smoked,  washed  themselves,  and  ate  their 
dried  fish  and  rice  anywhere  ;  and  the  captain  with  a 
priest  and  a  merchant  squatted  at  our  right.  I  will  not 
weary  your  patience  to  relate  how  many  days  after  we 
intended  to  start  the  sail  was  hoisted  and  we  were  off. 
One  never  expects  a  native  sailing  craft  to  leave  until  the 
three  days  of  grace  (and  grumbling  impatience)  are  twice 
over.  But  good  Abdullah  bin  Kainbar  was  not  alto- 
gether to  blame ;  two  of  his  sailors  ran  away,  and  he  had 
to  look  them  up  and  urge  them  on  board.  With  a  fair, 
brisk  wind  filling  the  huge  sail  we  were  all  happy  to  start 
and  forgot  the  delays  and  our  dried  bread  baked  three 
days  too  early. 

Our  boat  was  bound  for  Abu  Thabi,  the  first  important 
town  on  the  coast  south.  The  wind  continued  favourable, 
and  on  Monday  we  were  sailing  between  two  islands, 
mere  rocks  and  uninhabited  except  by  a  few  fishermen 
during  the  season.  A  little  further  towards  the  mainland 
is  the  large  island  of  Dalma,  and  there  was  a  long  dispute 
between  the  captain  and  the  mate  as  to  which  island  we 
were  passing.  When  the  words  waxed  warm  between 
them  my  chart  decided  the  dispute.  This  island  is  an  old 
centre  for  the  pearl-fishers,  and  every  season  there  is  a 
large  gathering  here  of  merchants  and  divers  ;  a  sort  of 
market-place  on  the  highway  of  the  sea. 

The  weariness  of  five  days  and  nights  in  the  boat  was 
relieved  in  many  ways.  There  was  opportunity  to  read 
and  plenty  of  interruption. 

81 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 
We  had  our~meals  to  cook  and  tried  to  fish  with  a 
line  and  hook  ;  once  the  captain  hit  a  wild  duck  with  his 
rusty  gun,  but  although  all  helped  to  lower  the  boat  and 
they  pursued  the  wounded  bird,  she  escaped.  One  day 
we  saw  a  large  shark,  and  that  afternoon  there  were  some 
good  fish  stories.  At  night  the  black  slave  Abdullah 
sat  at  the  wheel  and  told  stories  as  only  a  Negro- Arab  can 
tell  them  ;  stories  of  the  new  Arabian  Nights,  and  of  how 
an  Arab  sharper  stole  a  favourite  horse  by  putting  the 
bridle  on  his  own  neck  and  having  his  mate  run  off  with 
the  horse  !  Several  times  it  was  our  turn  to  lead  the 
conversation,  and  we  had  a  splendid  opportunity  to  give 
"line  upon  line  and  precept  upon  precept."  One  can 
judge  at  once  of  the  ignorance  and  open-heartedness  of 
the  Arab  sailors  by  the  remark  they  commonly  make 
after  they  have  had  a  missionary  or  colporteur  for  pas- 
senger:  "We  had  no  idea  that  Christians  were  such 
decent  folk  and  even  prayed  to  Allah." 

At  three  o>  clock  on  Thursday  afternoon  we  were  in 
sight  of  Abu  Thabi,  or  "  father-of-the-gazelle."  It  was 
my  first  visit  to  this  town,  although  Elias  had  been  there 
before.  We  found  the  ruler  kind,  friendly  and  very  in- 
telligent. We  were  assigned  to  a  large  room  in  one  of 
his  houses,  and  during  our  stay  of  four  days  there  was 
abundance  of  food  sent  to  ns  from  the  ruler's  table,  and 
all  our  wants  were  supplied  from  his  beneficence, — huge 
dishes  piled  with  rice,  steeped  with  gravy  and  crowned 
with  several  pounds  of  prime  roast  mutton,  the  whole 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 
surrounded  with  dates  and  bread  loaves,  on  a  large  cir- 
cular mat,  and  washed  down  with  perfumed  water.  We 
were  never  hungry. 

When  the  dwellers  in  the  mat- huts  heard  of  the  arrival 
of  foreigners  with  a  medicine  chest  and  books  our  room 
was  filled  with  the  curious  or  the  ailing  from  early  dawn 
until  after  sunset.  That  is  the  only  drawback  to  their 
kindness  j  the  Arab  idea  of  hospitality  does  not  include 
the  blessing  of  privacy  for  their  guest.  One  is  never  left 
alone,  and  if  you  seek  solitude  they  set  you  down  as  a 
magician,  or  delver  into  the  hidden  things  of  nature  which 
are  forbidden  to  all  true  believers.  So  we  had  to  forego 
meditation,  reading,  and  even  the  change  of  clothing  until 
nightfall,  after  our  long  sea  journey. 

It  was  a  queer  crowd  that  collected  in  the  court  and 
filled  our  little  room  ;  a  long  row  of  Arabs  sitting  on  the 
mats  all  around  the  four  sides  of  the  court.  Most  of 
them  were  Oman  Arabs,  but  there  was  one  priest  from 
Mecca  who  had  more  to  say  than  all  the  rest.  He  was  a 
wanderer  who  wore  a  spotless  white  turban  and  a  sneer- 
ing smile.  His  present  residence,  he  said,  was  on  the 
Island  of  Kais,  in  the  Gulf,  and  he  lived  as  do  all  of  his 
kind  by  teaching  school  and  copying  charms  for  the 
ignorant.  We  had  some  discussions  and  more  quiet  talks 
together  after  the  crowd  left.  It  was  sad  to  hear  from 
him  what  dense  ignorance  there  is  regarding  our  religion. 
The  news  of  Queen  Victoria's  death  had  just  reached  there 
and  the  sage  from  Mecca  told  fabulous  stories  of  how  and 

83 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 
why  Christians  were  ruled  by  women !  Our  sales  of 
Scripture  were  not  large,  but  there  was  a  demand  for 
other  books.  One  poor  but  learned  man  brought  a  manu- 
script copy  of  Al  Hariri  (the  Arabian  Shakespeare)  in 
exchange  for  other  books. 

We  left  Abu  Thabi  by  sailing-boat  for  Debai,  eighty 
miles  up  the  coast  in  a  straight  line.  The  wind  com- 
pelled us  to  go  zigzag. 

This  place  has  become  the  metropolis  of  Western  Oman, 
and  in  population,  progress,  commerce  and  architecture 
far  surpasses  all  the  other  towns.  Between  Abu  Thabi 
and  Debai  the  coast  is  desert  and  neither  date- tree  nor 
hut  is  seen  ;  so  flat  is  the  country  that  a  hill  two  hundred 
feet  high  (the  only  landmark  for  sailors)  is  called  "the 
High  Mountain." 

We  did  not  tarry  long  at  Debai,  although  we  had  a 
pleasant  morning  at  the  house  of  the  ruler  and  met  some 
Arabs  from  the  interior.  One  of  them  said  he  was  will- 
ing for  a  proper  consideration  to  take  me  all  the  way 
across  Arabia  to  Jiddah,  the  port  of  Mecca.  In  the  after- 
noon we  started  selling  Scriptures  on  the  outskirts  of  the 
town  and  in  a  very  short  time  the  crowd  collected. 
Women  came  with  copper  coins  and  bright  boys  brought 
their  savings  to  purchase  Gospels— in  the  language  of  our 
trade,  "the  true  story  of  the  Living  Prophet  Jesus. " 
After  we  left  Debai  on  donkeys  two  boys  who  were  late 
ran  after  us  and  overtook  us  a  mile  from  the  town  ;  they 

brought  money  and  paid  for  three  more  books.     The 

84 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 
captain  of  our  boat  took  us  to  his  house  for  breakfast  on 
our  arrival,  and  showed  us  some  poetry  his  wife  had 
written.  She  talked  with  us  and  seemed  versed  in  the 
Koran  ;  we  left  her  a  Gospel. 

From  Debai  to  Sharkeh  we  rode  on  asses,  and  as  our 
two  chests  were  heavy  they  were  put,  one  each,  on  the 
backs  of  two  other  asses  ;  the  distance  is  about  ten  miles. 
At  Sharkeh  we  met  old  friends  and  were  glad  that  even 
after  a  previous  visit  we  were  welcomed.  An  Arab 
merchant  showed  us  much  kindness  and  offered  us  a  shop 
with  a  prophet's  chamber  above  it  for  rent.  Since  this 
visit  our  missionaries  often  come  here.  From  Sharkeh 
we  crossed  over  to  Lingah,  and  thence  back  to  Bahrein 
by  the  mail  steamer,  but  Elias  went  on  visiting  Ajman 
and  the  villages  beyond  all  the  way  to  Eas-el- Jebel,  which 
means  "  the  top  of  the  mountain."  The  Arabic  version 
of  the  seventy-second  Psalm  gives  the  promise  in  this 
way  :  "  There  shall  be  an  handful  of  corn  in  the  earth  on 
Eas-el- Jebel ;  the  fruit  thereof  shall  shake  like  Lebanon." 


85 


XIII 
ACEOSS  THE  DESERT  OF  OMAN 

OMAN  is  a  little  peninsula  that  sticks  out  eastward 
from  the  big  peninsula  of  Arabia,  and  it  might 
almost  be  called  an  island.  On  three  sides  are 
the  waters  of  the  Indian  Ocean  and  the  Persian  Gulf,  and 
on  the  west  is  the  great  sea  of  sand  which  the  Arabs  call 
the  "  empty  abode, "  and  which  has  never  been  crossed  by 
any  traveller  as  far  as  we  know.  The  Arabs  themselves 
are  afraid  to  venture  beyond  the  limits  of  the  oases  that 
touch  its  borders,  and  on  all  the  maps  of  Arabia  this 
desert  is  marked  "  blank  and  unexplored. "  Because  the 
people  of  Oman  for  centuries  past  lived  on  such  an  island 
with  the  sea  on  one  side  and  the  desert  on  the  other,  they 
are  quite  distinct  from  the  other  Arabs.  The  language 
they  speak  has  a  peculiar  accent,  and  their  religion, 
although  they  are  Mohammedans,  is  in  many  respects 
different  from  that  of  the  other  parts  of  Arabia. 

I  want  to  tell  you  of  two  journeys  taken  across  this 
province.  Many  others  have  been  made  since,  and  our 
medical  missionaries  can  now  visit  all  the  villages  in  the 
mountains  back  of  the  coast.  On  May  9,  1900,  a  colpor- 
teur and  I  put  our  two  chests  of  books  and  medicines  on 
board  a  small  sailing-boat,  and  at  four  o' clock  the  wind 
was  favourable  to  leave  Bahrein  harbour.  "We  intended 

86 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

to  visit  the  pirate  coast,  and  thence,  if  the  way  proved 
open,  to  cross  the  horn  of  Oman  to  Muscat,  overland. 

The  captain  and  crew  of  our  boat  were  all  strict 
Moslems,  and  made  no  secret  of  the  fact  that  formerly 
they  were  slave-traders.  Crossing  by  zigzag  lines  to  the 
Persian  coast  to  avoid  shoals  and  catch  the  wind,  we 
reached  Bistana  and  then  sailed  across  the  Gulf  direct  for 
Sharkeh.  Half-way  across  is  the  little  island  of  Abu 
Musa,  with  a  small  Arab  population,  but  splendid 
pasturage,  good  milk  and  water.  The  chief  export  is  red 
oxide,  of  which  there  are  two  hills  with  a  boundless 
supply.  Steamers  occasionally  call  here  for  this  cheap, 
marketable  ballast ;  we  left  our  witness  in  the  shape  of 
Arabic  Gospels. 

On  May  14th  we  reached  Sharkeh,  the  chief  town  on 
the  pirate  coast.  Formerly  this  entire  region  was  noted 
for  the  savage  ferocity  of  its  inhabitants.  Thanks  to 
English  commerce  and  gunboats,  'these  fanatic  people 
have  become  tamed  ;  most  of  them  have  given  up  piracy 
and  turned  to  pearl -diving  for  a  livelihood  ;  their  black 
tents  and  rude  rock  dwellings  are  making  room  for  the 
three  or  four  important  towns  of  Sharkeh,  Debai,  Abu 
Thabi,  and  Eas  el  Kheima.  We  found  the  Arabs  rather 
hospitable,  and  quite  willing  to  hear  our  message.  The 
mat-hut,  set  apart  for  our  use,  we  for  seven  days  made 
dispensary  and  reception-room.  Here  over  two  hundred 
Arabs  came  to  get  medicines,  buy  books,  or  discuss  the 
reason  of  our  errand.  Many  were  the  quiet  talks  during 

87 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 

those  days  with  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  Arabs.  There 
was  often  no  rest  until  long  after  sunset ;  and  no  sooner 
had  the  muezzin  called  to  daylight  prayer  than  the 
visitors  began  to  walk  in  again.  They  were  a  pleasant 
lot  of  people,  and  more  sociable  than  the  Arabs  of  Yemen, 
while  less  dignified  than  those  from  Nejd. 

We  heard  on  every  side  that  travelling  in  the  interior 
of  Oman  was  safe,  so,  after  bargaining  with  camel- drivers, 
we  secured  two  companions  and  five  camels  to  take  us  to 
Sohar  for  the  sum  of  twenty  rials  or  Arabian  dollars.  At 
9  P.  M.  on  May  20th  we  left,  and  after  a  short  rest  at 
midnight  to  water  the  camels,  marched  until  nine  o*  clock 
the  next  day.  By  going  as  much  as  possible  by  starlight 
to  avoid  the  heat,  and  resting  during  the  day  under  some 
scraggy  acacia  tree  or  in  the  shadow  of  a  Bedouin  fort, 
we  completed  the  distance  of  ninety  odd  miles  in  a  little 
over  four  days.  A  large  part  of  the  way  we  took  was 
desert,  with  no  villages  or  even  nomad  booths  ;  the  more 
usual  route  by  Wady  Horn  being  a  little  unsafe,  we 
followed  Wady  Hitta. 

Sometimes  our  caravan  would  pass  a  camePs  skeleton 
bleached  by  the  torrid  sun.  When  a  camel  grows  foot- 
sore or  breaks  down,  there  is  no  alternative :  the  poor 
beast  is  left  to  die  in  the  wilderness.  The  second  day  we 
passed  villages  and  cultivated  fields ;  that  night  we 
spread  our  blankets  on  the  soft  sand7  surrounded  by 
thousands  of  sheep  and  goats,  driven  in  by  Bedouin  lasses 
from  their  mountain  pastures.  Even  among  these  shep- 

88 


OJ 

j? 

£ 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

herds  we  found  readers,  and  the  colporteur  sold  books 
wherever  the  camels  halted  long  enough  to  strike  a  bar- 
gain. It  was  late  on  Wednesday,  May  23d,  that  we 
entered  the  narrow  pass  of  Hitta.  Our  guides  preceded, 
mounted,  but  with  rifles  loaded  and  cocked  ;  then  fol- 
lowed the  baggage  camel,  to  which  mine  was  "  to  wed," 
and  in  similar  fashion  my  companion  on  the  milch  camel 
followed  by  its  two  colts.  We  were  not  troubled  with  the 
heat  at  night,  but  during  the  day  it  was  intense,  and  it 
was  refreshing  to  come  to  an  oasis  (common  in  this  part 
of  Oman)  where  water  burst  from  a  big  spring,  and  trees 
and  flowers  grew  in  luxury.  In  the  mountainous  parts 
of  Oman  the  roads  run  almost  invariably  along  sandy 
watercourses  or  deep,  rocky  ravines.  Tamarisks,  olean- 
ders, euphorbias,  and  acacias  are  the  most  common  trees 
and  shrubs.  Where  the  country  appears  almost  barren, 
we  were  surprised  to  find  a  considerable  population  of 
shepherds  and  goatherds.  Their  dwellings  are  mere  oval 
shanties  constructed  of  boulders  or  rocks.  In  the  fertile 
valleys  the  population  always  centres  in  villages,  and 
scarcely  ever  is  a  dwelling  found  at  any  distance  from 
this  common  centre. 

Just  at  the  top  of  the  pass  of  Hitta  is  the  village  >  Ajeeb, 
rightly  named  "  wonderful."  The  view  down  the  moun- 
tains over  the  fertile  stretch  of  coast  called  the  Batinah 
and  out  over  the  boundless  Indian  Ocean  was  grand.  We 
descended  to  the  sea,  and  the  turbulent  mountain  stream, 
so  cold  to  our  bare  feet  as  we  waded  it  in  the  early  dawn, 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 

dwindled  to  a  brook,  and  at  last  ebbed  away  along  the 
beach  a  tiny  stream  of  fresh  water.  These  perennial 
streams  are  the  secret  of  a  coast  fertile  for  nearly  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  miles. 

At  Shinas,  on  the  sea,  we  spent  a  hot  day.  The  mosque 
was  our  pulpit  and  salesroom.  One  graybeard  took  us 
to  his  hut  after  noonday  prayer  to  offer  us  simple  hospi- 
tality. He  spoke  with  fervour  of  my  brother,  Peter  J. 
Zwemer,  who  came  to  his  village  three  years  previous. 
From  Shinas  our  camels  took  us  to  Sohar.  At  the  large 
village  of  El  Wa  we  were  unable  to  stop,  as  the  camel- 
men  were  afraid  of  smallpox,  which  was  prevalent  there. 
Every  one  we  passed  on  the  way  was  friendly  to  a  re- 
markable degree.  The  women  brought  fresh  milk  and 
fruit  to  us  ere  we  dismounted,  and  the  boys,  instead  of 
mocking  the  strange  foreigners,  salaamed,  delighted  to 
hear  that  in  spite  of  our  appearance  we  spoke  Arabic. 
Not  one  copper  did  we  spend  for  food  and  lodging  ;  it  is 
the  land  of  large-hearted  hospitality.  To  help  a  sick 
child  or  give  quinine  to  some  ague- tormented  Arab  was 
to  them  a  large  return  for  their  kindness  to  a  "  son-of- 
the-road." 

My  second  journey  across  the  northern  horn  of  Oman 
was  made  in  May,  1901,  with  the  same  travelling  com- 
panion ;  and  sailing  from  Bahrein  to  Abu  Thabi  we  went 
straight  east  to  the  coast  of  Oman  and  then  along  its 
shores  all  the  way  to  Muscat  by  camel.  It  was  the  long- 
est camel  journey  that  ever  I  made,  and  when  I  reached 

90 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

Muscat  I  was  convinced  that  the  camel  is  not  only  the 
ship,  but  the  hardship  of  the  desert. 

The  town  of  Abu  Thabi  from  which  we  started  is  situ- 
ated on  a  sort  of  island  formed  by  the  back-water  of  its 


Xhe  Missionary  Review  of  the  World" 

harbour.  A  chasm  about  two  hundred  yards  wide,  and 
even  at  low  water,  four  or  five  feet  deep  protects  the 
town  against  desert  invasion,  and  a  fort  has  been  built 
close  to  this  water  barrier.  After  our  camels  had  waded 
through  the  water  breast  deep  and  nearly  soaked  our 
luggage,  we  began  the  desert  journey.  For  three  hours 

91 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 

the  road  was  as  level  as  a  table  and  equally  barren  ;  then 
we  passed  some  outcropping  rocks  called  the  devil's 
castle.  All  that  day  and  the  next  we  rode  through 
sandy  deserts  with  scarcely  any  vegetation,  resting  at 
noon  under  the  shade  of  a  blanket  roped  over  our  two 
boxes.  It  was  hot  indeed,  and  the  water  in  our  water 
skins  had  taken  on  a  bad  taste  after  the  long  and  jerky 
ride.  We  had  dates  and  made  some  soup  from  con- 
densed vegetables,  but  the  Bedouins  of  our  party  caught 
big  lizards  and  made  a  boiled  mess  of  them,  with  rice. 
They  were  displeased  that  we  did  not  share  their  meal. 

On  Sunday  we  arrived  at  an  Arab  encampment  and 
rested.  They  made  a  feast  for  us  of  fresh  milk,  and  at 
night  killed  a  fat  kid,  and  made  cakes  baked  on  hot 
ashes.  At  nine  o'clock  that  night  we  left  our  Bedouin 
friends,  and  rode  on  until  past  midnight,  always  due 
east  by  the  stars.  It  was  very  cold  at  night  in  the 
desert.  These  extremes  of  temperature  are  trying,  but 
not  unhealthy.  The  following  day  we  came  across  a 
poor  nomad  girl  who  was  lost  in  the  desert  and  nearly 
dying  of  thirst.  She  had  been  seeking  for  a  strayed 
camel,  and  had  then  missed  all  traces  of  the  road  herself. 
For  two  days  she  had  been  alone  in  the  desert,  and  had 
almost  given  up  hope.  Our  guide  gave  her  some  water 
and  dates  and  showed  her  the  nearest  way  to  the  encamp- 
ment. All  this  stretch  of  country  as  far  as  Bereimy  is  a 
wide  wilderness  of  sand  for  miles  and  miles  in  every 

direction ;  not  level  sand,  but  sand  in  big  folds  and 

92 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

A  R  A  B  I  A 

billows  a  hundred  feet  high,  that  change  with  every 
storm. 

It  was  a  delightful  change  to  reach  the  oasis  of  Bereimy 
with  its  seven  villages,  j  oined  by  streams  of  fresh  water, 
and  date  plantations,  as  well  as  high  mango  trees  and 
gardens  of  vegetables.  Beyond  this  oasis  the  mountain 
road  passed  numerous  villages  to  Obri  and  Dank.  We 
took  the  shorter  road  through  Wady-el-Jazi,  direct  to 
Sohar.  The  Arabs  in  this  part  of  the  world  are  per- 
petually at  war  with  each  other.  Everybody  gets  up 
armed  and  goes  to  bed  with  a  rifle  by  his  side.  Even 
little  boys  carry  a  dagger  in  their  belts,  and  old  men  will 
part  with  anything  rather  than  their  shotguns.  We 
met  with  no  mishap  by  the  way,  however,  and  reached 
Sohar  safely,  but  we  did  not  go  to  Muscat  by  sea  because 
there  was  no  wind.  Instead  we  encouraged  each  other  to 
stick  to  our  rough  camel  saddles  for  four  days  more, 
which  made  the  entire  distance  from  Abu  Thabi  to  Muscat 
nearly  three  hundred  miles. 

The  whole  country  is  most  interesting.  In  spite  of 
continual  warfare,  the  peasants  seem  to  find  time  to  cul- 
tivate every  fertile  spot,  and  raise  all  sorts  of  crops. 
We  saw  barley,  wheat,  sesame,  vegetables  and  even 
tobacco.  In  one  village  we  rested  on  the  wide  threshing 
floor  where  the  old-fashioned  instrument  with  sharp 
teeth,  of  which  the  Bible  speaks,  lay  idle.  The  Oman 
plow  is  much  better  than  those  in  North  Arabia. 
There  they  plow  with  a  crooked  stick,  whose  sharp  prong 

93 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 
is  strong  enough  to  break  up  the  sandy  loam,  but  in  this 
mountain  region  the  peasants  make  a  real  coulter  of  iron 
and  fit  it  to  a  heavy  frame,  braced  to  an  upright  handle 
of  three  bars  set  at  right  angles.  The  dress  of  the  men 
and  women  is  quite  distinct  from  that  in  other  parts  of 
Arabia,  and  their  houses  are  built  like  castles.  Nearly 
every  well  is  protected  by  a  fort,  and  villages  only  a  mile 
or  two  apart  often  carry  on  war  with  each  other  for 
many,  many  years.  This  is  the  chief  obstacle  to  travel 
in  the  hill  country  of  Oman. 

Before  you  forget  our  journey  across  this  part  of  Arabia, 
I  want  you  to  think  of  an  Arab  praying  in  the  desert. 
One  of  the  names  the  Arabs  give  to  the  desert  is  the 
"  Garden  of  Allah, "  because  they  say  there  is  nothing  but 
God  ;  no  other  life,  or  sound  or  scene  to  distract  one's  at- 
tention ;  only  the  great  blue  vault  above,  without  a  cloud, 
and  the  wide  stretch  of  sand  and  rock  all  around  the 
horizon.  No  wonder  that  the  desert  has  been  God7  s  train- 
ing school  for  many  of  His  prophets  and  teachers.  Think 
of  Moses,  and  Elijah  and  Paul  and  Christ. 


84 


XIV 
JAIL-BIBDS 

DID  you  ever  hear  of  missionaries  who  were  jail- 
birds? Well,  that  has  been  my  experience. 
This  is  how  it  was. 

The  day  after  Christmas  about  ten  years  ago  it  was 
decided  that  we  make  a  tour  to  the  mainland  of  Arabia 
from  the  island  of  Bahrein,  our  station.  The  picnic 
basket  was  packed  with  fresh  bread  and  canned  meats 
and  good  things,  and  we  also  took  along  extra  clothing, 
a  box  of  books  and  some  medicines  for  the  people.  Our 
Arab  servant  had  a  hard  time  of  it  to  secure  a  boat  that 
would  take  us  over  because  the  people  were  still  suspicious 
of  Christians  and  were  not  at  all  anxious  to  have  them 
begin  work  in  new  places.  After  a  boat  had  been  secured 
whose  captain  was  willing  for  a  good  consideration  to  al- 
low Christians  to  travel  with  him  we  still  waited.  When 
one  travels  by  native  boat  in  Arabia  there  is  always  de- 
lay ;  it  may  be  a  couple  of  hours  or  it  may  be  a  few  days. 
Time  and  tide  and  the  Arab  temper  are  equally  unreli- 
able in  the  Persian  Gulf.  It  is  no  use  fussing  and  get- 
ting impatient.  That  only  makes  the  Arab  more  im- 
movable. 

At  four  o'clock  a  small  boat  came  as  close  to  the  shore 
as  the  water  would  allow,  and  then  we  rode  out  on  donkeys 

through  the  surf  to  the  tossing  boat,  and  in  this  small 

95 


ZIGZAG         JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 

''jolly-boat "  we  were  taken  to  the  native  ship  where  we 
settled  on  the  poop-deck  with  all  our  belongings.  The 
deck  of  this  little  sailing  craft  did  not  measure  more  than 
six  feet  by  four,  and  so  we  had  to  sit  close  or  we  would 
fall  overboard.  The  man  at  the  tiller  can  manage  on 
three  or  four  square  inches  of  room,  and  his  bare  toes 
cling  to  the  edge  of  the  boat  just  like  a  monkey  on  the 
bough  of  a  tree.  The  sail  was  hoisted  and  away  we  went 
for  about  three  hours.  Then  the  wind  dropped  and  we 
were  becalmed  almost  in  sight  of  shore  until  the  next 
morning.  After  prayers  at  daybreak  the  sail  was  again 
hoisted,  and  the  awkward  paddle  oars  which  the  Arabs 
use  were  taken  out  to  help  increase  the  speed.  Finally, 
after  a  severe  struggle  we  arrived  at  our  destination. 

The  pretty  little  town  of  Darain  stood  out  clearly  in 
the  bright  sunlight,  and  we  were  glad  that  at  last  we  were 
to  reach  the  mainland  of  Arabia.  I  was  the  first  Christian 
woman  that  had  ever  landed  on  this  part  of  the  coast. 
There  was  a  ride  through  the  shallow  water  of  about  a 
quarter  of  a  mile,  and  our  Arab  host  was  kind  enough  to 
send  out  a  choice  of  vehicles  for  my  use, — a  chair,  a  horse 
and  a  donkey.  I  chose  the  donkey  as  the  safest  and 
mounted  and  splashed  through  the  surf  to  the  land.  The 
rest  of  our  party  followed.  "We  were  then  conducted  to 
the  guest  chamber  in  the  tower, — a  large  airy  room  with 
about  twenty  window  frames  and  no  windows,  only 
shutters ;  so  that  when  the  wind  blew  the  dust  from  the 
desert,  the  wooden  shutters  were  fastened,  and  the  light 

96 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

and  air  had  to  be  shut  out  also.  Our  host  was  very 
cordial  and  laid  no  special  restraint  upon  us,  although  he 
too  was  suspicious  that  we  had  come  to  begin  missionary 
work  in  earnest  in  his  village, — a  thing  which  he  would 
not  allow.  He  treated  us  royally  and  with  genuine  Arab 
hospitality,  but  yet  his  suspicion  was  evident  because  he 
kept  us  away  from  another  guest  of  his,  the  Turkish 
governor  of  Katif,  as  he  did  not  wish  him  to  know  that  he 
had  friends  among  the  Christians.  After  three  days  of 
entertainment  we  went  on  board  our  boat  again  on  the 
way  to  Katif.  We  landed  there  in  a  few  hours  but  found 
ourselves  in  a  real  "  hornet's  nest."  Our  very  best  and 
most  winning  smiles  could  not  melt  the  harshness  of  the 
custom-house  officials.  They  said  our  passports  were  not 
properly  made  out,  and  the  motion  was  soon  made  and 
carried  that  we  should  be  returned  whence  we  came  at 
once. 

Fortunately,  there  was  no  boat  ready  to  take  us  back, 
and  it  was  not  our  intention  to  be  turned  back  without  at 
least  attempting  to  dispose  of  some  of  the  Gospels  which 
we  had  brought  with  us  and  to  win  the  confidence  of 
some  of  the  people.  We  were  not  despondent  because 
even  in  this  inhospitable  place  there  was  a  man  who  was 
anxious  to  receive  us  and  who  invited  us  to  come  and  stay 
at  his  home.  We  were  so  happy  for  a  few  brief  hours. 
The  man's  wife  prepared  a  guest  meal  and  received 
us  very  courteously.  They  gave  us  a  well-furnished 
room  and  we  were  delighted  to  see  that  this  Moslem 

97 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 
was  already  a  Bible  reader,  for  in  one  of  the  alcoves  of  the 
room  was  a  well-thumbed  New  Testament. 

But  no  sooner  did  we  begin  to  unpack  our  things  than 
a  gruff  voice  from  below  called  for  us  to  come  down  im- 
mediately and  bring  all  our  belongings.  A  lank-looking 
individual,  who  said  he  was  a  police  agent,  compelled  us 
to  follow  him,  and  so  we  went  through  narrow,  dirty 
alleys  and  smelling  streets,  and  were  finally  conducted 
into  the  courtyard  of  a  large  tumble-down  house,  the 
steps  all  crumbling  and  indescribably  filthy.  After 
struggling  up  the  steep,  irregular  stairway,  we  were  shown 
into  a  small  room  in  a  part  of  the  house  quite  by  itself, 
which  opened  out  on  to  a  small  roof.  It  had  no  windows 
and  only  one  dingy  door. 

A  smoky  lamp  without  a  chimney  was  brought  in 
which  lit  up  the  darkness  but  also  showed  the  dirt. 
Many  generations  of  men  and  insects  had  lived  there,  and 
marked  up  every  space  on  the  walls.  When  we  pro- 
tested and  said  we  preferred  to  stay  elsewhere,  we  were 
told  to  remain ;  that  we  were  prisoners,  and  that  we  were 
not  permitted  to  go  to  any  other  place.  While  my  hus- 
band was  led  off  to  the  governor  by  himself  I  waited.  It 
took  him  over  an  hour  to  try  to  persuade  the  great  official 
to  allow  us  liberty,  but  it  was  all  to  no  purpose.  We 
must  remain  in  these  lodgings  which  he  had  provided. 
There  were  soldiers  on  each  landing,  he  told  us,  and  they 
were  warned  to  protect  us  and  not  to  let  us  pass  out.  So 
we  settled  down  to  the  inevitable.  The  kind  Arab  from 

98 


Bedouin  Women  and  their  Children 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

Darain  was  also  in  Katif,  and  later  on  in  the  evening  he 
brought  the  jail- birds  some  quilts  and  rugs  to  make  them 
a  little  more  comfortable.  We  did  our  best  to  rest,  but  it 
was  almost  impossible,  and  we  were  glad  to  see  the  first 
streak  of  dawn.  Determined  not  to  stay  in  the  house  any 
longer,  we  prepared  a  meal  from  our  lunch  basket, 
packed  our  few  belongings  and  started  to  find  our  way 
to  the  street.  The  ragged  individuals  called  soldiers 
murmured  as  we  passed  but  did  not  stop  us  and  we  were 
out  in  the  road  and  some  distance  from  the  governor's 
house  when  our  servant  whom  we  had  not  seen  until  now 
came  after  us  and  said  we  must  not  go  j  that  the  governor 
wanted  us  and  wanted  us  at  once. 

I  began  to  protest,  but  was  finally  persuaded  to  return 
and  to  my  great  surprise  was  conducted  into  a  room  gor- 
geously furnished  where  a  nice-looking  meal  was  being 
set  on  a  small  table.  The  governor  arose  and  received  us 
very  politely,  inquiring  after  our  health  and  comfort. 
We  swallowed  our  wrath  and  told  him  in  the  best  Arabic 
possible  that  we  were  quite  well  and  hoped  his  lordship 
was  also.  He  then  invited  us  to  breakfast  and  would  not 
accept  a  refusal.  We  wondered  what  would  happen  next. 
After  we  had  explained  our  errand  and  stated  our  desire 
to  sell  books  to  the  people  and  talk  to  them  about  religion, 
he  said  he  would  permit  us  to  stay  with  the  custom-house 
officer,  but  that  we  must  not  distribute  or  sell  a  single 
book  and  that  a  soldier  must  go  with  us  wherever  we 
went.  It  was  his  belief  that  the  people  might  do  us  harm 

99 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 

unless  we  were  well  guarded,  and  that  as  they  had  never 
before  seen  Christians  it  was  entirely  unsafe  for  us  to  dis- 
tribute books  or  sell  them  among  Mohammedans  as 
fanatical  as  those  in  this  part  of  Arabia.  Thanking  him 
for  his  kindness  and  accepting  his  apologies  for  keeping 
us  as  jail-birds  during  the  night,  we  left  his  rooms  and 
started  walking  through  the  streets.  A  soldier  guard 
followed  us,  but  when  we  refused  to  pay  them  for  their 
service  as  guards  and  guides,  they  turned  their  backs  and 
went  away.  And  so  in  this  land  of  misrule  and  intoler- 
ance, this  uttermost  province  of  the  Turkish  Empire,  we 
were  once  more  free. 


100 


XV 
THE  ACOKN  SCHOOL 

TO  the  American  schoolboy  a  Moslem  school  and 
school-books  would  appear  the  dullest  things 
possible.    Yet  the  Arab  boys  do  enjoy  school 
for  there  is  always  something  to  distract  the  attention, 
especially  if  the  teacher  is  a  shopkeeper.     While  a  cus- 
tomer bargains,  or  the  water  carrier  passes,  or  the  coffee- 
house man  brings  the  daily  "cup  of  cheer,"  or,  in  the 
case  of  a  woman  teacher,  callers  come,  all  eyes  and  ears 
are  open  not  towards  the  lesson  but  the  conversation  and 
the  sights. 

The  earliest  and  only  text-book  is  the  Koran  or  portions 
of  it  cheaply  lithographed  on  common  paper.  There  are 
no  pictures  in  their  primers,  for  a  Moslem  tradition  says 
that  Mohammed  cursed  all  who  would  paint  or  draw  men 
and  animals.  There  is  neither  singing  nor  prayer  when 
school  opens.  Mohammed  said,  "Singing  or  hearing 
songs  causeth  hypocrisy  to  grow  in  the  heart  even  as  rain 
causeth  corn  to  grow  in  the  field. "  The  school  has  no 
special  building,  but  may  be  in  the  corner  of  a  mosque  or 
in  the  yard  of  the  teacher ;  or  part  of  his  shop  (if  he  is  a 
merchant)  will  form  the  schoolhouse.  There  is  no  furni- 
ture except  mats  and  folding  bookstands.  These  look 
like  tiny  sawbucks.  The  schoolmaster  sits  amongst  his 

101 


2  1  G  Z  A  G        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 
boys  on  the  floor,  and  they  all  drone  out  their  lessons  to- 
gether. There  are  no  grades,  neither  is  there  order  in 
the  schoolroom.  One  lad  may  be  at  the  alphabet ;  an- 
other one  as  far  as  counting  numbers  ;  a  third  child  may 
be  spelling  out  the  first  chapter  of  the  Koran,  while  others 
are  reading  from  the  middle  of  the  book  at  the  top  of 
their  voices.  The  education  of  a  boy  should  begin  at  the 
age  of  four  years,  four  months  and  four  days.  On  that 
day  he  is  taught  to  say  the  Bismillah,  or  opening  chapter 
of  the  Koran.  Soon  after  that  he  may  be  sent  to  one  of 
the  day-schools  to  learn  the  alphabet. 

When  a  boy  has  finished  the  reading  of  the  whole  of 
the  Koran  for  the  first  time  and  has  learned  the  rudiments 
of  writing,  he  graduates  from  the  primary  school.  On 
this  occasion  he  has  a  rare  holiday.  Dressed  in  fine 
clothes,  perhaps  mounted  on  horseback,  he  visits  the 
neighbours,  receives  gifts  and  sweetmeats  and  brings  a 
handsome  present  to  his  tutor.  If  he  does  not  intend  to 
become  a  doctor  of  divinity  or  of  herbs,  this  is  the  end  of 
his  school-days,  and  the  lad  is  put  to  learning  a  trade  or 
helping  his  parents. 

As  to  moral  training,  tradition  commands  pious  Mos- 
lems to  teach  the  boy  of  seven  to  say  his  five  daily 
prayers ;  at  the  age  of  ten,  if  he  omits  them  they  are  to 
admonish  him  by  blows.  Boys  are  taught  early  the  pro- 
prieties of  conversation  and  behaviour  according  to 
Oriental  etiquette.  They  are  also  taught  the  ceremonial 
washings  and  the  correct  postures  for  devotions.  But 

102 


A  Meccan  Boy 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

purity  of  conversation  and  truth  are  seldom  taught  by 
precept,  and  never  by  example. 

Writing  is  taught  on  a  wooden  slate  or  in  copy-books 
made  by  the  teachers.  Slates  and  slate  pencils  are  prac- 
tically unknown,  and  the  youngest  child  begins  with  a 
reed  pen  and  ink.  Caligraphy  is  not  only  a  science,  but 
the  chief  fine  art  in  that  part  of  the  world  which  abhors 
painting,  statuary  and  music.  To  write  a  beautiful 
Arabic  hand  is  the  height  of  youthful  scholarly  ambition. 

A  country  that  has  only  such  schools  cannot  progress  ; 
and  so  the  missionaries  open  schools  with  a  broader 
course  of  study  and  with  better  training  for  the  mind  and 
heart. 

The  first  Christian  school  in  East  Arabia  was  opened  in 
1899  on  the  veranda  of  the  old  mission  house  overlooking 
the  sea.  The  little  children  of  Ameen  who  was  in  prison 
for  his  faith  were  living  with  their  mother  in  our  house, 
and  they  needed  to  be  taught ;  two  of  the  rescued  slave 
boys  from  Muscat,  who  had  come  to  help  in  the  house- 
work, had  some  spare  hours  in  the  morning,  and  it  was 
better  for  them  to  study  than  to  sit  around  doing  nothing, 
for  Satan  finds  an  awful  amount  of  mischief  for  idle  hands 
to  do  in  Bahrein,  and  so  the  little  school  was  started  for 
the  children  in  the  house.  We  gave  it  the  name  of  the 
"Acorn  School "  in  faith  that  as  "  tall  oaks  from  little 
acorns  grow,"  so  some  day  education  in  Arabia  would  be 
what  it  is  now  in  America.  We  had  lessons  for  two  hours 
each  morning,  marching,  singing,  etc.,  for  the  little  ones, 

103 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 

baby'Bessie  lying  on  the  couch  near-by  while  the  children 
were  being  taught ;  others  wished  to  join,  but  neither  ac- 
commodations nor  strengthlwould  allow  us  to  enlarge  our 
borders  at  that  time. 

After  some  months  an  Arabic  teacher  was  assigned  to 
the  station  to  teach  a  new  missionary  the  language,  and 
about  that  time  we  moved  into  a  larger  house.  Then  our 
numbers  increased,  and  one  of  those  early  pupils  was  a 
young  Jewish  girl ;  another  was  a  Jewish^boy,  who  re* 
mained  about  three  years,  and  was  always  a  docile  and 
clever  pupil  in  English  and  Arabic ;  he  has  a  complete 
Bible  in  Arabic,  which  they  read  in  his  home.  The  girl 
was  a  great  help  to  us  in  every  way — first  in  school,  and 
later  in  the  hospital ;  she  is  quite  a  changed  girl  and  a 
superior  one,  and  we  trust  the  day  will  come  when  she 
will  openly  confess  Christ  and  follow  Him.  Some 
grown-up  lads  were  among  those  first  scholars,  and  they 
came  to  learn  English.  One  of  the  older  boys  was  such 
an  apt  pupil  that  he  was  taken  on  the  staff  of  the  English 
Political  Agent  as  interpreter  for  the  Persians  ;  another 
advanced  so  far  that  he  is  able  to  buy  and  sell  for  the 
wholesale  business,  and  for  this  reason  is  a  great  help  to 
his  father,  a  merchant  in  Bahrein.  These  boys  have 
learned  much  of  the  truth  along  with  their  English,  and 
neither  of  them  now  believe  that  the  sun  sets  in  a  pool  of 
black  mud ! 

The  reflex  influence  of  the  school  is  felt  even  in  their 
homes,  changing  some  of  the  habits  and  language.  Some 

104 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

of  those  early  scholars  have  gone  to  the  Eternal  Home. 
Quite  a  number  of  the  missionaries  and  native  helpers 
have  helped  from  time  to  time  in  this  school,  for  when 
one  left,  another  would  take  up  the  work.  The  last  few 
years  the  girls  have  been  doing  needlework  and  learning 
how  to  make  their  own  clothes  neatly. 

There  are  a  great  number  of  Christians  and  Jews,  but 
the  greater  number  in  good  weather  are  Moslems,  and  in 
the  cool  season  the  little  room  is  overcrowded,  and  one 
teacher  is  very  busy  trying  .to  keep  all^employed.  The 
school  is  still  in  the  initial  stage,  but  it  has  proved  its 
right  to  exist,  and  when  we  look  into  the  brightening 
faces  of  those  who  gather  to  be  taught,  and  listen  to  the 
Scripture  portions  repeated  and  the  hymns  'spiritedly 
sung,  we  can  only  say:  "What  hath  God  wrought !" 
To  outsiders  the  school  may  seem  a  small  thing,  but  to  us, 
who  have  watched  its  slow  growth,  it  is  encouraging. 
The  teaching  has  always  in  view  the  honour  of  Christ  in 
a  land  where  His  title,  "  Son  of  God,"  is  disputed. 

If  you  could  see  our  new  school  building  you  would 
know  how  much  better  off  the  children  are  who  come  to 
the  Christian  school  than  those  who  still  attend  the  native 
schools.  The  rooms  and  the  seats,  and  windows  through 
which  glorious  sunshine  and  light  shine,  the  blackboards 
and  maps  and  pictures  all  help  to  educate  through  "  eye 
gate."  The  boys  and  girls  are  graded  and  separated,  for 
coeducation  is  not  yet  a  good  thing  in  Arabia.  When  I 
taught  in  the  school  I  used  to  surprise  the  girls  occasion- 

105 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 

ally  by  bringing  to  schooi  some  little  treat  of  fruit,  dates 
or  candy  ;  and  I  wish  you  could  have  heard  their  hearty 
"Thank  you "  and  listened  to  them  as  they  left  the  yard 
and  went  over  the  desert  to  their  houses,  singing  at  the 
top  of  their  voices  in  Arabic  Christian  hymns  which  they 
had  learned  in  school.  They  thought  it  would  please  me 
and  impress  us  with  their  goodness.  And  it  was  good  to 
hear  these  girls  and  sometimes  small  boys  singing  "  My 
Faith  Looks  up  to  Thee,"  "  Jesus  Loves  Me,  This  I 
Know,"  etc.  And  even  if  they  did  not  understand  the 
deep  meaning  nor  enter  into  it,  it  gave  them  pleasure  to 
sing  the  bright  tunes.  And  while  they  sang,  they  were 
out  of  mischief  at  least.  It  was  so  new  for  these  Moslem 
girls  to  have  any  one  to  care  anything  about  them. 


106 


XVI 
THE  STOEY  OF  A  EOLLER  BANDAGE 

THE  day  was  very  hot,  and  I  was  very  tired. 
The  flies  were  buzzing  thick  around  me  and 
it  was  impossible  for  me  to  keep  awake  over 
the  book  which  slipped  from  my  fingers  and  fell  on 
the  floor.  I  stretched  myself  for  one  of  those  delightful 
noonday  naps  which,  in  spite  of  the  heat  and  the  flies, 
revive  the  life  of  the  missionary  and  make  him  ready  for 
the  work  of  the  afternoon,  and  as  I  slept,  I  dreamed  a 
dream. 

I  was  walking  up  towards  the  mission  hospital,  when 
what  should  I  see  coming  down  the  steps  but  a  roller 
bandage,  walking  along  as  happy  as  could  be,  and  after 
exchanging  the  usual  Arab  greeting  of  "  Salaam,"  he  told 
me  this  story  : 

"  I  suppose  you  have  never  heard  of  me  before,  and  I 
am  sure  you  never  will  unless  I  introduce  myself  and  un- 
roll the  story  of  my  short  but  interesting  life. 

"  A  little,  round,  fat  body  like  me  may  have  a  long 
story  to  tell ;  for  when  I  lie  at  full  length  I  measure  four 
yards  without  stretching  the  truth  one  bit. 

"It  is  only  six  months  ago,  as  far  as  I  remember,  that 
I  was  part  of  a  fine  new  piece  of  white  muslin  in  the 

store  window  of  a  merchant,  and  had  no  name  or  place  or 

107 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

A  R  A  B  I  A 

mission  of  ray  own  in  this  big  world.  One  day  the  sales- 
man reached  out  and  took  the  piece  of  muslin  down.  It 
was  sent  with  a  lot  of  other  purchases  to  the  home  of  a 
lady  (I  think  her  name  was  Pho3be  or  Dorcas)  greatly 
interested  in  foreign  missions. 

"  The  next  thing  I  knew,  the  willing  hands  and  deft 
fingers  of  a  band  of  little  folks  tore  me  from  my  seven 
sisters  and  rolled  me  up  so  snug  and  tight  that  none  would 
imagine  I  was  only  a  strip  of  cloth.  And  then,  when  a 
bright  new  pin  was  stuck  on  my  breast,  really  I  began  to 
feel  quite  important.  The  following  day  I  was  put  into  a 
pasteboard  box  with  three  dozen  other  roller  bandages, 
and  I  remember  hearing  a  short  prayer,  just  as  they  tied 
down  the  cover,  that  God  would  bless  us  on  our  errand  of 
mercy  to  dark  Arabia. 


"Time  would  fail  me  to  tell  of  the  days  we  spent  in  the 
basement  of  the  building  of  the  Board  of  Foreign  Mis- 

108 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 
sions,  waiting  to  be  put  in  our  corner  of  a  big  box,  and 
of  all  the  interesting  things  I  learned  from  those  who 
spoke  about  the  heathen  and  Mohammedans  while  they 
were  packing  supplies  for  the  various  mission  fields. 
You  know  I  never  knew  there  were  so  many  doctors  and 
nurses,  and  so  many  hospitals  and  dispensaries — not  to 
speak  of  schools  and  other  things  under  the  care  of  our 
Board. 

"Finally,  the  box  that  was  to  be  my  prison  house  for 
two  long  months  was  tumbled  into  a  dray  and  taken  to 
the  North  Eiver  pier.  There  they  lifted  us  into  the 
dark  hold  of  a  ship  ;  the  sailors  fastened  down  the 
hatches  ;  the  whistle  blew,  and  we  were  off  for  the  long 
voyage. 

"  Being  a  roller  bandage  from  my  earliest  youth,  I  did 
not  at  all  mind  the  motion  of  the  vessel ;  but  some  of  the 
dolls  and  picture  cards  were  all  upset. 

"  When  we  reached  Bombay  we  were  transferred  with  a 
great  deal  of  unnecessary  noise  to  another  ship  bound  for 
the  Persian  Gulf.  I  remember  that  I  was  curious  to  know 
at  which  port  of  the  Gulf  I  would  disembark.  One  of 
the  biggest  roller  bandages  said  fteknew,  for  he  had  heard 
the  New  York  lady  tell  the  children  that  these  bandages 
were  for  the  Mason  Memorial  Hospital  at  Bahrein,  Arabia. 
All  were  not  agreed. 

"  A  many-tailed  bandage  said  he  thought  we  were  going 
to  Busrah  to  help  in  the  dispensary  there,  but  a  T  bandage, 
which  has  three  ends  to  it  and  is  shaped  like  a  big  letter 

109 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 

T,  contradicted  him,  and  there  came  near  being  a  quar- 
rel. The  little  bandages,  however,  with  one  accord 
smoothed  it  over  by  saying :  '  Wait  and  you  will  see.' 

"  The  big  roller  bandage  was  right.  When  the  British 
India  steamer  entered  Bahrein  harbour  with  a  large  cargo 
of  rice  and  tea  and  Manchester  goods,  the  missionary 
boxes  got  mixed  up  with  the  rest,  and  were  put  over  the 
ship's  side  into  native  boats. 

' i  Such  a  hubbub  and  shouting !  I  knew  we  were  among 
Arabs  and  in  the  land  of  Ishmael,  although  I  could  not 
understand  one  word  of  their  strange  language. 

"  From  the  cargo  boat  we  were  carried  on  the  back  of  a 
donkey  through  the  surf  to  the  custom-house,  and  thence 
once  again  to  the  hospital.  I  cannot  say  I  enjoyed  the 
donkey  ride.  The  boy  who  drove  the  beast  had  an  awk- 
ward way  of  turning  sharp  corners  in  the  narrow  streets, 
and  then  the  big  packing  case  would  bump  hard  against 
a  stone  wall,  and  give  us  an  awful  shaking. 

"It  was  a  relief  to  hear  the  voices  of  our  new  friends. 
Soon  the  box  was  opened,  and  we  saw  daylight  once  more. 
The  sheets  and  blankets  were  put  to  immediate  use  in  the 
general  ward ;  the  dolls  put  away  for  Christmas ;  while 
we  were  taken  to  the  operating-room,  and  put  behind 
glass  doors  on  a  shelf.  Even  though  I  was  not  an  eye 
bandage,  I  could  easily  see  that  we  were  occupying  the 
best  room  in  the  entire  hospital,  and  I  distinctly  heard 
one  of  the  ladies  say  :  *  These  bandages  are  fine.' 

"You  can  imagine  that  we  kept  our  eyes  and  ears  open 

110 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

after  such  a  welcome.  Well,  it  was  rather  monotonous, 
after  all.  Every  day,  nearly,  the  doctor  had  some  sort  of 
eye  patient  on  the  table,  and  consequently  the  eye 
bandages  put  on  airs  of  great  importance.  We  waited 
impatiently. 

"  One  day  a  nurse  came  in  suddenly  and  seized  me  by 
my  throat  and  took  me  without  ceremony  to  the  general 
ward,  a  big  room  with  twelve  beds  in  it. 

"On  the  stretcher,  in  the  middle  of  the  floor,  lay  an 
Arab,  looking  very  untidy  and  weak,  and  in  great  pain.  I 
heard  his  story.  His  name  was  Ahmed  bin  Haroon,  and 
he  was  a  poor  fisherman  from  the  distant  village  of  Zillag. 
Zillag  is  one  of  those  little  struggling  hamlets  on  the 
Island  of  Bahrein  to  which  the  missionaries  occasionally 
make  zigzag  journeys,  visiting  the  people  to  carry  them 
Gospels  or  to  invite  the  sick  to  the  hospital.  The  day  be- 
fore, very  early  in  the  morning,  while  he  was  mending 
his  nets  and  collecting  his  fish,  a  robber  came,  stabbed 
him  twice  in  his  abdomen,  and  taking  the  fish,  ran  away. 

'  '  The  poor  man  had  two  nasty  cuts,  deep  and  dangerous, 
and  I  heard  them  say  while  cleaning  the  wounds  that  he 
would  probably  not  live.  Though  he  looked  so  ignorant 
and  dirty,  I  really  felt  sorry  for  the  poor  fellow,  and  won- 
dered if  I  could  be  of  much  help.  After  the  doctor  pnt 
on  the  dressings,  my  turn  came.  In  fact,  I  had  more 
turns  than  I  have  ever  had  since,  all  in  the  space  of  five 
minutes.  Bound  and  round  that  Arab  they  wound  me 

close.     But  to  see  the  look  of  gratitude  on  his  face  when, 

ill 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 
iii  a  clean  shirt  and  on  a  [nice  spring  bed,  with  me  for 
company,  he  opened  his  eyes — well,  it  was  worth  the  long 
journey,  I  can  tell  you.  Over  our  bed  there  was  a  chart 
with  No.  109,  and  the  man's  name  on  it.  There  were 
also  curious  zigzag  lines  drawn  every  morning  and  even- 
ing across  the  chart.  The  doctor  put  these  lines  there, 
for  I  saw  him  do  it,  after  inserting  a  fever  thermometer 
in  the  patient's  mouth.  I  soon  learned  to  know  whether 
the  line  would  go  up  or  down  by  counting  the  heart- beats 
of  my  companion.  Of  course,  being  so  close  together,  we 
learned  to  like  each  other,  and  I  one  day  explained  to 
him  how  the  people  away  off  in  America  had  sent  me  as 
their  little  missionary  for  his  comfort.  On  the  opposite 
side  of  the  ward  there  is  a  picture  of  Christ  healing  a 
blind  man,  which  we  used  to  look  at. 

"  They  prayed  for  No.  109  and  read  a  little  to  him,  but  I 
am  sure  he  understood  what  /  told  him  much  better.  You 
see,  until  he  got  hurt  he  was  very  suspicious  of  Christians 
and  believed  all  sorts  of  foolish  things  about  them.  Now 
he  talked  with  the  other  patients  and  watched  what  was 
done  for  him,  and  felt  me  near  him  ;  it  was  a  new  life  for 
him.  His  condition  became  more  hopeful  every  day  ;  I 
knew  it  by  the  way  he  began  to  enjoy  his  soup.  Not  that 
I  was  with  him  all  the  time  myself.  No  ;  the  other  roller 
bandages  had  their  turn,  and  I  heard  the  rest  of  the  story 
from  them.  Ahmed  bin  Haroon  was  discharged  nearly 
cured  on  the  first  day  of  the  Moslem  fast  month.  He 
came  back  after  for  a  visit,  and  is  going  about  his  work 

112 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

—the  same  fisherman.  Only  there  is  no  telling  how  much 
he  may  think  of  what  he  saw  and  heard  while  he  mends 
his  nets  at  Zillag.  And  the  missionaries  are  sure  of  a 
warm  welcome  in  that  village  ever  hereafter. 

"  The  day  I  was  taken  off  duty  and  said  good-bye  to  my 
patient  I  met  such  a  lot  of  bandages  down -stairs  in  the 
surgery  ;  there  seemed  no  end  of  them  !  Of  course,  most 
of  them  were  common,  from  the  Bahrein  bazaar,  and  un- 
bleached, but  they  had  good  stories  to  tell,  nevertheless. 
I  heard  it  stated  on  good  authority  that  over  a  thousand 
yards  of  bandages  were  used  up  in  one  month.  And 
when  I  saw  the  number  of  men,  women  and  children  with 
ulcers  and  abscesses,  sitting  on  the  veranda  that  day,  I 
did  not  doubt  the  fact.  Only  I  wish  I  could  have  told  it 
to  that  salesman  in  New  York  and  to  the  kind  lady. 
Then  there  would  have  been  more  of  us ;  for  I  am  sure  it 
is  no  trouble  for  the  boys  and  girls  to  make  rollers  of  us. 

"  My  end  was  near.  In  spite  of  all  that  I  had  done  for 
the  hospital,  the  sweeper  carried  me  out  in  a  bucket,  and 
then,  without  ceremony  or  apology,  the  whole  pile  of  us 
were  set  on  fire,  and  we  went  up  in  a  chariot  like  Elijah." 

He  ended  his  story,  and  as  I  looked  at  him,  I  was  just 
about  to  say  :  "  How  did  you  ever  get  back  here  out  of 
the  bucket  and  the  fire  to  come  and  tell  me  your  story  f  " 
but  when  I  began  to  speak,  the  bandage  speedily  disap- 
peared, and  so  did  the  hospital,  and  I  awoke  from  my 
dream.  The  hospital  records,  however,  show  how  the 
story  of  the  bandage  is  true  in  every  particular, 

113 


ZIGZAG 

A  R  A 


JOURNEYS 

B  I  A 


11  Oh,  what  can  little  hands  do 

To  please  the  King  of  Heaven  ? 

The  little  hands  some  work  may  try 
To  help  the  poor  in  misery  : 

Such  grace  to  mine  he  given." 


114 


XVII 
NAJMA'S  LAST  CHRISTMAS 

OUR  little  Arab  friend,  Najma,  was  born  a  long 
distance  from  the  place  where  last  Christmas 
was  spent.  Bagdad  is  the  city,  you  remember, 
where  Sinbad  the  sailor  lived,  and  in  this  very  city  on  the 
old  river  Tibris  Najma  was  born.  Her  father  and  mother 
were  both  good  Moslems  and  she  was  their  first-born  child, 
and  yet  not  very  welcome,  because  all  Moslems  like  to 
have  boy  babies  and  not  girls.  They  gave  her  the  name 
of  Fatima  after  the  daughter  of  Mohammed,  their 
prophet.  When  she  was  afterwards  baptized  into  the 
Christian  faith  with  her  mother  the  name  Najma  was 
given  her  which  means  a  "star."  Her  father  suffered 
much  persecution  for  changing  his  religion,  and  when  he 
was  sent  into  exile  far  away  from  his  home,  she  with  her 
mother  and  brothers  came  down  the  river  to  Busrah  and 
down  the  Persian  Gulf  to  Bahrein.  It  was  a  long  zigzag 
journey  for  them  by  flat-bottom  river  boat  and  ocean 
steamer,  and  then  in  the  little  harbour  boat,  tacking  with 
the  wind  to  shore. 

Until  the  family  came  to  us  they  did  not  know  what 
Christmas  meant,  and  of  course  had  never  celebrated  it. 
When  her  third  Christmas  came,  and  it  was  her  last,  it 
was  still  a  fresh  and  joyful  occasion  to  her,  therefore,  as  it 
was  to  all  of  us  in  that  lonely  island  and  amongst  our  lit- 

115 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 
tie  group  of  converts.  Not  only  was  it  the  last  Christ- 
mas to  Najma  but  for  others  in  that  company  gathered  to 
celebrate  the  birthday  of  our  Saviour.  Two  other  little 
voices  that  sang  so  sweetly 

11  Where  do  all  the  daisies  go  ? 
I  know,  I  know  ! 
Underneath  the  snow  they  creep, 
Drop  their  heads  and  go  to  sleep. 
In  the  spring-time  up  they  peep. 
That  is  where  they  go," 

were  silent  before  the  next  Christmas  came  around.  And 
then  the  mother  of  Najma  who  looked  so  strong  and  sat 
in  the  corner,  interested  so  deeply  in  all  the  recitations 
and  songs,  with  two  others  of  that  little  company  had  gone 
Home  before  the  end  of  the  new  year. 

It  was  Najma's  last  Christmas,  however,  that  I  was 
going  to  tell  about.  We  had  been  busy  all  morning 
decorating  the  little  chapel  in  the  hospital  and  getting  the 
simple  gifts  all  in  order  for  the  afternoon  celebration. 
Kajma  had  not  been  well  for  a  few  days,  suffering  with 
those  attacks  of  fever  that  are  so  common  in  the  Persian 
Gulf.  When  Christmas  came  we  thought  she  would  not 
be  well  enough  to  attend,  but  she  begged  so  hard  and  was 
so  sure  that  she  would  be  all  right  that  we  sent  around  a 
donkey  to  her  home  ;  and  when  her  mother  had  put  on  all 
her  new  garments,  so  bright  and  pretty,  she  rode  to  the 
hospital.  Although  she  was  weak,  when  she  came  with 

the  other  children  she  brightened  up  considerably  and 

lie 


A  Bedouin  Girl  playing  peek-a-boo  on  a  camel 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

took  a  keen  interest  in  everything,  even  helping  to  sing 
the  Christmas  carols.  When  the  others  had  said  their 
pieces,  she  insisted  on  saying  hers  and  repeated  beauti- 
fully the  whole  fifty-first  Psalm.  Then  she  waited  until 
the  refreshments  were  served — that  most  important  part 
of  a  Christmas  celebration — and  afterwards  wishing 
everybody  a  Happy  Christmas  she  was  placed  on  the 
back  of  the  donkey  and  went  home.  I 

I  wish  you  could  have  seen  our  Christmas  tree  on  that 
occasion.  It  consisted  of  a  number  of  palm  branches  tied 
together  and  the  gifts  were  hung  from  the  spikes  of  the 
branches, — presents  old  and  new  for  all  who  came.  Most 
people  would  have  been  surprised  at  the  absence  of  dolls, 
but  in  Arabia  these  have  to  be  given  out  sparingly  and 
judiciously  because  some  of  the  Moslems  are  too  much 
afraid  of  idol  worship  to  appreciate  dolls  in  their  homes. 
Therefore,  we  gave  the  children  writing  pads  and  pencils, 
books  and  toys,  beads  and  new  dresses,  small  bags  of  rice 
for  the  poorer  scholars, — something  for  everybody.  How 
joyfully  each  received  his  or  her  gift ! 

Najma  gathered  up  all  the  little  things  given  to  her 
and  kept  them  close  by  her  side  all  the  next  day  and 
took  a  great  deal  of  pleasure  in  them  ;  but  in  the  even- 
ing of  that  day  we  were  suddenly  called  out  to  see  her 
and  found  her  dying  from  heart  failure  following  that 
week  of  fever.  It  was  a  surprise  and  a  shock  to  us  all. 
In  spite  of  her  faults  those  who  knew  her  best  could  not 
help  loving  her.  With  tremendous  difficulty  she  learned 

117 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 

to  read  the  Gospel  and  was  very  proud  of  her  attainment 
as  it  is  only  one  girl  in  a  thousand  among  the  Arabs  who 
can  read.  To  lose  such  a  bright  little  Arab  girl  seemed 
very  sad  at  that  time,  but  God  makes  no  mistakes,  and 
we  are  so  glad  that  this  little  girl  had  such  a  bright 
Christmas  as  her  last  on  earth.  Think  of  the  children 
who  are  in  the  hospital  to-day,  many  of  them  for  the  first 
time  in  contact  with  Christians,  and  that  some  of  them 
have  never  yet  had  their  first  Christmas  in  Arabia. 
There  are  many,  many  little  girls  in  this  neglected  coun- 
try who  would  enjoy  a  Christmas  so  much  if  only  they 
knew  as  Najma  did  about  the  Babe  born  in  a  manger 
for  their  sakes.  It  is  nineteen  hundred  years  ago  that 
He  came  to  the  world  as  its  Saviour  and  yet  there  are 
so  many  countries  where  the  boys  and  girls  have  not  yet 
heard  of  His  coming. 

If  we  would  win  the  whole,  round  world  for  Jesus  we 
must  tell  His  story  all  around  the  earth  and  give  every- 
body a  chance  to  read  the  story  of  His  life.  Do  you  re- 
member those  beautiful  verses  of  Father  Tabb  in  regard 
to  the  First  Christmas  f 

"  A  little  Boy  of  Heavenly  birth 
And  far  from  Home  to-day, 
Comes  down  to  find  His  ball,  the  earth, 
Which  sin  has  cast  away. 
Come,  comrades,  let  ns  one  and  all 
Join  in  to  get  Him  back  His  ball." 


118 


XVIII 
THOSE  WHO  HAVE  NEVER  HEAED 

IF  all  Arabia  is  to  hear^the  story  of  the  Gospel,  there 
are  many  zigzag  journeys  yet  to  be  made.  The 
country  is  much  larger  than  most  people  imagine, 
and  a  great  part  of  it  is  still  unexplored.  Fortunately 
the  unexplored  sections  of  the  great  peninsula  are  nearly 
all  uninhabited  as  far  as  we  know,  but  no  one  has  been 
there  to  see  or  investigate.  If  you  were  to  travel  from 
New  York  to  Chicago  and  back  on  a  camel,  the  distance 
would  be  about  as  great  as  to  cross  Arabia  once  in  its 
broadest  direction.  Topsy  Turvy  Land  is  three  times  as 
large  as  the  state  of  Texas,  the  largest  state  in  the  Union. 
It  is  nearly  as  large  as  all  British  India,  excluding  Burma, 
and  if  you  spread  Arabia  out  on  the  map  of  Europe, 
without  tucking  in  the  corners,  you  could  cover  the  whole 
of  France,  Belgium,  Holland,  Germany,  Switzerland, 
Italy,  Austria,  Servia,  Eoumania,  and  Bulgaria. 

The  population  of  this  great  stretch  of  country  with  its 
table-lands  and  deserts,  its  villages  and  encampments,  is 
perhaps  eight  million  ;  and  just  as  Arabia,  with  its  four 
thousand  miles  of  coast,  has  only  three  lighthouses  for 
ships  that  pass  in  the  night,  so  the  light  of  the  Gospel  is 
shining  in  only  a  very  few  places  along  the  coast,  and 
hardly  at  all  in  the  interior.  At  Aden,  and  Muscat,  and 

119 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 

Bahrein,  and  Kuweit  and  Busrah,  as  well  as  along  the 
rivers  as  far  as  Bagdad,  there  are  lighthouses  of  the 
Gospel.  Although  only  like  little  candles  burning  in 
the  night,  they  can  be  seen  from  a  lonjj  distance.  Patients 
come  for  hundreds  of  miles  to  the  hospitals,  and  when 
they  go  away,  carry  the  gospel  message  for  hundreds  of 
miles  back  to  their  villages.  And  yet  what  are  these 
few  stations  for  so  large  a  territory,  and  what  can  less 
than  forty  missionaries  do  among  so  many  people  ? 

When  the  great  Missionary  Conference  met  at  Edin- 
burgh in  1910  and  the  report  was  made  on  How  to  Carry 
the  Gospel  to  all  the  non- Christian  World,  it  stated  that 
"  Of  the  eight  million  inhabitants  of  Arabia,  it  is  entirely 
safe  to  say  that  fully  six  million  are  without  any  mission- 
ary agency."  One  can  travel  from  Bahrein  across  the 
mainland  for  1,150  miles  without  meeting  a  missionary 
or  a  mission  station,  all  the  way  to  Aden.  On  the  entire 
Eed  Sea  Coast,  as  well  as  the  south  coast  between  Aden 
and  Muscat,  there  is  no  mission  work.  Of  the  six  prov- 
inces of  Arabia,  only  three  are  occupied  by  mission 
stations.  No  one  has  ever  preached  the  Gospel  at  Mecca, 
where  Mohammed  was  born,  or  at  Medina,  where  he  lies 
buried,  and  although  some  ninety  thousand  pilgrims  from 
every  part  of  the  Moslem  world  pass  through  Jiddah 
every  year  on  their  way  to  Mecca,  this  important  city  is 
still  waiting  for  an  ambassador  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Perhaps  the  most  neglected  class  in  this  great  neglected 
country  are  the  Bedouins,  or  nomads.  Like  Ishmael  of 

120 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 
old,  "  their  hand  is  against  every  man,  and  every  man's 
hand  is  against  them."  Hated  alike  by  the  town  dwell- 
ers and  the  Turks,  they  are  the  roving  gypsies  of  the 
Orient,  and  yet  they  are  so  numerous  and  so  closely  bound 
together  by  tribal  ties  that  sometimes  one  can  see  their 
black  tents  spread  out  in  vast  encampments  like  a  city 
of  tabernacles  in  the  wilderness. 

It  is  a  strange  life  these  children  of  Ishmael  lead,  a  life 
full  of  its  joys  and  sorrows  and  desert  hardships.  Under 
the  shadow  of  a  black  tent,  or  the  shade  of  an  acacia 
bush,  or  perhaps  behind  a  camel,  the  Arab  baby  first 
sees  the  daylight.  As  soon  as  it  is  born,  its  mother  gives 
it  a  sand-bath,  and  the  father  gives  it  a  name.  For  the 
rest,  it  is  allowed  to  grow  up  much  as  it  pleases.  Trained 
from  birth  in  the  hard  school  of  fatigue  and  hunger  and 
danger,  the  Bedouin  children  grow  up  saucy  and  im- 
pudent, but  with  cunning  and  a  knowledge  of  all  the 
ways  of  the  desert  and  the  life  of  the  caravans. 

The  Bedouin  children  have  no  books  nor  toys.  They 
play  with  dead  locusts  or  dried-up  camePs  bones  ;  they 
make  whistles  out  of  desert  grass,  and  love  to  use  the 
sling  as  David  did,  with  pebbles  from  the  brook  when  he 
killed  the  giant.  The  girls  help  in  the  hard  work  of 
drawing  water,  making  butter  and  driving  the  camels  to 
and  from  pasture.  Although  they  cannot  read,  and  have 
no  picture  books,  they  all  of  them  study  without  ceasing 
the  great  picture  book  of  nature,  and  their  little  dark 

eyes,  whether  watching  the  sheep  at  pasture,  or  counting 

121 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 

the  stars  in  the  blue  abyss  from  their  perch  on  the  lofty 
camel  saddle  in  the  midnight  journeyings,  are  never  at 
rest. 

In  some  parts  of  Arabia,  Bedouin  women  when  they 
travel  ride  on  a  camel  saddle  called  a  howdij,  which  pro- 
tects them  from  the  gaze  of  strangers.  Sometimes  they 
play  peek-a-boo,  as  the  camel  trudges  along.  In  many 
respects  their  life  is  most  unhappy.  Doughty  and  other 
travellers  believe  that  over  one-half  of  the  nomad  popula- 
tion seldom  know  the  blessing  of  a  full  meal.  When  they 
hear  from  the  lips  of  Western  travellers  of  countries  where 
there  is  bread  and  clothing  and  peace,  and  water  in  great 
abundance,  they  are  surprised,  and  contrast  the  condition 
of  other  nations  with  their  lives  of  misery.  One  of  them, 
after  listening  to  Doughty >s  description,  threw  his  hands 
up,  and  uttered  this  prayer,  "Have  mercy,  O  Allah, 
upon  Thy  creature  whom  Thou  createdst !  Pity  the 
sighing  of  the  poor,  the  hungry,  the  naked.  Have  mercy, 
have  mercy  upon  them,  O  Allah  !"  Who  can  help 
saying  "Amen"  to  the  nomad's  prayer!  We  cannot 
judge  them  harshly  when  we  remember  that  they  have 
never  had  a  fair  chance,  and  that  for  centuries  warfare 
and  plunder  have  been  their  daily  life.  I  remember  with 
much  interest  a  Sunday  I  spent  in  the  black  tents  of 
Kedar,  with  a  crowd  of  nomads  sitting  around.  They 
were  most  hospitable,  and  brought  in  great  wooden  bowls 
of  fresh  milk,  with  butter  floating  in  it,  dried  dates  and 

bread  baked  on  the  coals  ;  then,  when  our  appetites  were 

122 


IN    THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

ARABIA 

satisfied,  they  listened,  oh,  so  eagerly,  as  I  told  them  for 
the  first  time  the  old,  old  story  of  Jesus  Christ's  birth,  and 
death  and  resurrection.  Some  of  them  were  so  ignorant 
that  they  had  never  heard  of  a  cross,  and  I  remember 
taking  two  twigs  from  the  ground  and  showing  them  how 
our  Saviour  was  crucified  for  our  sins,  according  to  the 
Scriptures.  No  one  has  visited  that  tribe  in  Oman  since 
my  journey  eight  years  ago.  How  long  must  they  and 
others  wait  for  Christian  teachers?  Shall  the  Bedouin 
babies  have  a  better  chance  than  their  mothers  had  f 

The  kingdoms  and  governments  of  this  world  have 
frontiers  which  are  guarded  and  must  not  be  crossed 
without  permission,  but  the  kingdom  of  Jesus  Christ  has 
no  frontier.  It  has  never  been  kept  within  bounds.  It 
has  a  message  for  the  whole  race,  and  the  very  fact  that 
there  are  millions  of  people  in  the  heart  of  Arabia  who 
have  never  heard,  becomes  the  strongest  of  reasons  why 
we  must  carry  that  message  to  them.  Difficulties  and 
dangers  should  not  hold  us  ba,ck.  They  did  not  hold 
back  Jesus  Christ  when  He  made  the  long  journey  to  our 
lost  world.  He  depends  on  us  to  finish  His  work.  As  it 
is  written  : 

"  They  shall  see  to  whom  no  tidings  of  Him  came, 
And  they  who  have  not  heard  shall  understand." 


"O  Zion,  haste,  thy  mission  high  fulfilling, 
To  tell  to  all  the  world  that  God  is  Light ; 
That  He  who  made  all  nations  is  not  willing 
One  soul  should  perish,  lost  in  shades  of  night. 
123 


ZIGZAG        JOURNEYS 

ARABIA 

"Publish  glad  tidings  ; 
Tidings  of  peace ; 
Tidings  of  Jesus, 
Redemption  and  release." 


124 


IN 

A 

F.F. 


THE    CAMEL    COUNTRY 

R  A  B  I  A 


ARABIA, 


FLORIS  FERWERDA 


=fFf 

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A    - 

Go! 
Go! 
A    - 

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-  aids  of 
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the 
your 
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s  -  pel, 
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go!  Urged 
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by 

MM 
on 

3  3   j  i 

our  pray  'rs  as  - 
your  Mas  -  ter's 
sagv  far    and 
thy  dark-est 

4^ 

cend, 
love* 
near, 
uight. 

JlM  Ml"   fHl 


That  soon  the  fol  -  ness     of  Gods  love,  And    light       on  thee  de   • 

Let  ev     -  'ry  A-  rab     cap-tiye  know;  He      lives— .the God  of 

Till  ev    -  'ry  Moslem  heart  shall  bend     In        ho    -    ly.reverend 

The  Sun^  of  Righteousness  as  cends;  He^comes     to  give  thee 


love, 
fear. 


ft-  f 

. 

£&= 

i 

r  Jr'  v\  r  '  i 
j.  h  i  j  i  . 

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k*= 

•  M  ' 
i  •  r  i  i 

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=^4 

g^CifU'  »•<  .)';;u  T  8  '|  tf3  £f"'' 

From      O  •  manscliffsto'       Ye-mantsstrandThy  truth  from  sea  to        sea. 
His     truth     proclaim,  His  Vman-dale6  name.Sal  -  va-  tion's  offering    -brings 
Speed!   raes  -  sen-gers  "of  speace,speed  on!    Gods  promised  truth  make  known; 
Be  -  fore\  Him  shall  the  j^cres  -cent  wane.  Htm-   ev  -'ry  king^  shall    bless; 

P-  J                                 i    r^  -f2-* 

r  PT  T^T 

=H 

•  r-T  i 

r  j  f  1  1  =* 

Make  known  to    ev  -  'ry       A       rab  band,  O      Lord!  and  make  .them   free. 

Till        ev    -  'ry  soul  shall  learu  His  fame, And  crown   the  Saviour— King. 

Chil  -  dren  of  Ishmael ,     Ha    gar's  son ,  Go',    claim   them  as    God's  own. 

The    .wild    -  er-ness  shall  praise   His  name, The  isles     His  love  con  -  fess. 


* 


1 


125 


